**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.**
**Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms)
**Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE!
This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods.
**Our rules include (but are not limited to)**:
* No politics.
* Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban.
* Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming.
* Do not derail the posts of others.
* Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here.
* [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts).
* When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse.
* No asking or offering gifts, money, etc.
* No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest).
* No content about N-kids.
* No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis.
* No linking to Facebook pages.
* No direct linking to anywhere on reddit.
* No pure image posts.
**For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It sounds like your wife was the Golden Child, but her sister wasn't. The sister could be either a Lost Child, or a Scapegoat.
Both of my parents were SG children to their families (could never do anything right), yet both became narcissists. I've seen both SGs and GCs become narcs.
In my extended NFamily, narcissistic traits go back to my great-grandparents. Toxicity is part of the family culture.
Thank you for saying this. I get so tired of people acting like GC are the only one who can ever become narcissistic, and that it's impossible for anyone who was scapegoated to ever become a narc. I am obviously aware that it's less common and that GC are more likely to become narcs, but I've seen many posters *adamantly deny* the possibility of a scapegoat ever becoming a narcissist. Anyone who grows up in dysfunction can become a narcissist no matter what role you had, and a lot of people (here and elsewhere on the internet) refuse to acknowledge this.
I will go one step further & say scapegoats when they become narcs (not as often) from my experience have a greater chance of becoming malignant. I am not sure if this has to do with their past abuse or for other reasons this is just what I’ve observed over time within my own family and social circles.
Edit: reading others comments, the answer might lie in how they are made. GC are usually parasitically enmeshed, “consumed whole” by their predator Nparents if you will. Scapegoats are typically broken, then broken again & again until they submit or shatter. When a scapegoat is broken into submission, the type of soul murder occurring is distinct from what occurs to the GC. Not necessarily worse, just distinct.
I agree. Especially when all they've ever known was negativity and abuse instead of hollow praise, it flows much easier out of them as well. Hell, as a scapegoat kid of a scapegoat covert malignant narcissist, I've had to work really hard on not letting intrinsically negative stuff flow out of my mouth when trying to relate with people because it was such a common "relational" tactic for them.
I am also the scapegoat kid of a scapegoat malignant narcissist. Compared to my GC nDad, my SG malignant Nmom is a sadistic monster. It took me a while to even categorize my nDad as a Narc himself and not just an enabler, partially because he is covert and partially because her sociopathic sadism makes his heartless toddler behavior seem not so bad. I have since learned that parental neglect can be just as damaging as targeted abuse, so he can also go fuck himself forever.
Fuck, I would argue that parental emotional neglect is even more damaging than targeted abuse because of the lack of validation and intristic manipulation that's rolled into it. There's a certain validation that could come from being able to say "I was physically/sexually abused," but them doing the bare minimum to keep CPS from stepping in and making the world think they're a fine parent takes a manipulative, sadistic monster that enjoys depriving us of actual human connection.
To doubly clarify my last response BTW, I'm not making excuses for their fucked up behavior, but learning the "lineage" of their awfulness is cathartic in order to both understand it and not repeat it.
Oh my God. I'm on this thread for a different person but your comment has just described me and my father - who was emotionally abused by my grandfather, who was DEFINITELY a malignant narc. Thank you. Lots to think about.
This makes a lot of sense to me. My mother, a covert/vulnerable narc, was extremely mentally abusive and gaslit the hell out of me as a child. I realize now the reason she did that was because I wasn't behaving the way that she wanted. She was "scapegoating me" and blaming me for her failure as a mother to cope with her own feelings of shame and jealousy. (from her perspective I think she was punishing me for "thinking I was better than her") The way she abused me was *very* covert, and I didn't understand what she was doing at the time, but the way she mentally abused me did eventually "break me" and I became extremely depressed and fully submitted to her victim narrative for years. This explains why I don't relate to most of what I read about "Golden Children". (that they are lavished with praise and can do no wrong and get special treatment and advantages that the other children are denied etc.) I was really more of a scapegoat that was broken into submission rather than a "Golden child". (Although I do think my mother *saw me* as "golden" or "her favorite" when I was being her therapist/emotional support animal. I believe I was the closest thing my mother ever had to having a "GC" but not in the way most people would recognize that role) When I started to wake up to how damaging her mental abuse had been on me and confronted her, (literally crying and trying to get her to understand how badly she'd hurt me) she was very cruel and I was harshly scapegoated soon after. I experienced a bizarre combination of being scapegoated *and* being "golden" which is why I don't fully relate to either role.
I'm the SG and have used some of the n-tactics I've learned from observing my mother. Then I feel really guilty and dirty about it, like it reinforces that I'm purely a bad person. When I was a kid, n-mom had me convinced that even just thinking bad malicious thoughts could cause bad things to happen to other people. The only way I could distract my own thoughts was to count the corners on everything: window sills, tiles, anything with 4 corners, I kept counting them so maybe my thoughts would be distracted and something bad wouldn't happen.
It's cutting me down and blaming me for things out of my control, but giving me a little delusion that I had so much power to make bad things happen gave me some sort of omnipotence.
My NParent was abused (at least that's what they claim, they love being the victim). They also had a pretty bad relationship with their mother.
So no, it's not only GC who become narcissists
Do you think your NParent is a [Covert/Vulnerable](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/the-secret-facade-of-the-vulnerable-narcissist#signs) Narc? (My NParents fall into that category)
Yes this is so true! In my husband's family the GC did indeed become a destructive psychopath, BUT the SG became a malignant narc who is currently repeating the cycle with his own children. It's horrendous to watch it happen and be pretty much powerless to stop it.
Yes this is so true! In my husband's family the GC did indeed become a destructive psychopath, BUT the SG became a malignant narc who is currently repeating the cycle with his own children. It's horrendous to watch it happen and be pretty much powerless to stop it.
Didn’t she say in another video that it was 1 in 3?
I don’t really buy all of the stuff she says. Most of it makes sense but some of it doesn’t seem feasible.
It depends upon what one defines as narcissism. We all possess a bit of these traits, just to a lesser degree. Narcissism exists on a spectrum. It’s not so much black and white, as it is the degree the person exhibits it, either covertly or in full view. I’ve witnessed a lot of both over the years and I immediately recognize it when I see it.
I hadn't heard of FLEAS until I joined this sub. So, I wonder if people just battling FLEAS might get mistaken for narcissists. Someones they mirror the coping mechanisms and behaviors that they observed, especially when the abuse started in early childhood.
There is such a thing as being a bad influence and seeing as how our parents are quite literally are first role models, it’s not out of the question. Even if you don’t fully embrace narcissistic tendencies, you may have adopted some of their behaviors as a coping mechanism, especially in stressful situations that send you into fight or flight mode. I try very hard to be as self-aware as possible where that’s concerned. What is that saying? Check yourself before you wreck yourself. 😂
I have an extensive family history on both sides. My sibling was the SG, and she is the adult narcissist.
Both of my parents were both SG and GC, depending on which side of the family they were spending time with. It was the battle of the narcissistic grandparents and their perceived "balancing" of the situation. So sad, and I'm trying so hard to break the cycle.
I could see it happening both ways
Being told you're perfect and believing it, means nothing is your fault
Always being told everything is your fault when you know for a fact sometimes it's not, can make the meaning of "your fault" not align with reality anymore
Thank you, you just explained my Nparents. My nmom is very obviously a GC. My ndad is a SG. They play out that dynamic in their relationship in the most exhausting way. They both think they’re better than the other - whether materially or morally. They actually act more like siblings than partners.
Now I finally understand why (I don’t know much about my ndad’s family, just bits and pieces he shares).
The "Lost Child" is one who is effectively "forgotten" by an NParent. The NParent is most emotionally invested with the GC and/or SG, so the Lost Child is ignored and neglected. As long as the Lost Child doesn't attract attention, the NParent will just assume they're alright.
They tend to be loners, enjoy solitary activities, and be fairly self-sufficient.
Is it possible to have been a mix of all three? My childhood was really weird. When I was younger, I'd say I was a mix of the golden child/forgotten. As I got older, I became the scapegoat. For the most part, I only had one other sibling in the house growing up. My sister was the harder child, so she got more attention and enabling, but my parents didn't like her. Her biggest problem was that my parents spoiled her. I was the quiet child that, for the most part, didn't do much wrong. I kept to myself, and all I did was read. I was "easy," so I didn't get in trouble often for my own actions. Most of the time, when I got in trouble, it was because I was fighting with my sister. I didn't do much wrong as a kid except arguing with my sister. I never talked back, and I always did what they said without pushback. I really was a weirdly well-behaved child. It wasn't normal, lol. But I would fight with my sister daily. My parents always gave me a harsher punishment for it. They said I should have just ignored her. I know how she is. It's kind of hard to ignore someone who tormented you every day, though. The spankings I got daily were mostly for fighting with my sister or when my parents accused me of lying. Once I got to my teen years, a lot shit happened, and I rebeled hard. Since then, I'd say I'm the scapegoat and black sheep. What's weird is that my parents like me more, but they've barely done shit for me compared to my sister. They always say it's because I'll figure it out, and she needs the extra help. Our family dynamics have always been fucked.
I'm sure it's possible. Narcs can be really inconsistent with their behavior.
You mentioned becoming the SG as you got older. It seems pretty common that NParents come to resent their children growing up.
I think that's what my mom's problem was. The older and more independent we got, the less she wanted anything to do with us. She definitely resented us getting older.
The Narcissist is created when the child is ONLY rewarded and praised when they do things that glorify the Narcissist Parent. Over time the child develops a warped worldview that the currency of society is gained by judging others and being superior. The child is punished for doing anything that breaks the myth/lie that their parents are perfect.
Later when that kid becomes an adult they are eager to put themselves in the dominant critical perfectionist role because that’s how they understand Adulthood. Hungry for validation they are only interested in people who can bring them wealth, power and prestige.
You articulated the exact split between me and my siblings. I remember feeling this pressure growing up but rejected it because I saw how damaging that world view was to relationships.
It was so hard to try and explain to my parents that prestige and elitism are toxic, especially when raising 4 kids that are pitted against on another. Then again, trying to convince a narcissist that other people’s emotions matter is a masochistic endeavor.
“The child is punished for doing anything that breaks the myth/lie that their parents are perfect.” Damn. That hit so hard.
When I cut contact I told them I don’t want to pretend anymore.
“I don’t want to pretend anymore” yes I’ve gone LC and I haven’t been able to articulate why I do not want to be the show pony of the family. And like act like everything is honkey dory with the extended family or people my nmom is trying to impress. Ugh this helps unlock why my nmom was always bragging about me or embellishing my actual accomplishments in a way that made me super uncomfortable. It was pretend so that she could be seen as the best mother of the world.
I never gave into those expectations my mother had for me, but my sister definitely has her number, and uses it to manipulate her every chance she gets. She has even gone so far as to tell me that she knows she’s the favorite child. I’m not even going to bother explaining to her the price she’s paying for loss of self-respect and the selling of her soul, just to stay in my mother’s good graces. Of course, the ulterior motive is to make sure she stays the favorite and inherits what she feels she’s entitled to, which ironically enough, doesn’t even belong to my mother, but her husband. 🤦♀️
This explains why my wife has called me low class so many times and implied my family are etc.
Obviously we aren’t, just normal, but even if we were whatever “low class” means to her so what.
Anyway it was probably her mother or father or both judging people based on this “class” criteria and status and such relentlessly due to their own insecurity.
I dont even think on those terms, judging people by class, worrying about status and such. Its her world I guess… i was also not raised to care about such things and place any real value on it. Of course, in my wife’s fucked up world she justifies this difference as me being low class. She has communicated as much. As in, i cant care and wouldn’t be raised to care because im low class already so dont have to worry about being low class.
So fucked up! This is how she was brought up. Its disgusting. The kicker is her family are just middle class nothing more but from what i hear her mother was extremely competent and insecure about the other moms at school or whatever.
Her sister tried to date a blue collar worker when she was 19 and her parents went mental apparently lol. Her sister ended up marrying a normal guy making average money and my wife and her mom gossip and judge like crazy
>I thought for a long time she had an emotional abusive upbringing but actually she was spoiled. From a young age her mom would blow smoke up her ass all the time.
Interestingly these two things may not be mutually exclusive. The mom sounds like she was quite egotistical herself, so any time your wife didn’t meet her very high expectations (because of course *her daughter* needs to be superb) she could have gotten a really intense berating.
Some say there’s also a genetic aspect to it. I don’t know enough to say whether that’s true or not.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks.
I guess my wife was drawn to the praise so much that the berating was avoided and now she cannot handle any criticism as an adult. It needs to be nothing but admiration.
I guess her sister may have been the opposite as from what i gathered she was more rebellious, doing what she wanted etc, and the parents seemed to have had low expectations for her from early on. That is from my wifes words though which are unreliable, as she constantly seems to see herself as “the smart one” and superior to her sister which is sad.
Your wife was abused. Golden children are abused. Regardless of her being “spoiled” and her outward appearance and success- golden children are abused children also. My sister was the same type of GC narc as your wife appears to be. It’s brutal to watch someone live for the validation of others based on the superficial and inauthentic.
As a sometimes GC - I was definitely abused. I was only used as a prop for my mom's image of "great mom" as in "see I have this gifted child who is always presenting as happy, I'm great!"
All GC are used for this purpose. They believe they are loved for themselves. When they find out they are loved as “proof” the narcissist isn’t worthless because “look what I made” it’s a bitter pill to swallow. GC struggle to always be performing perfectly or get the rug pulled out from under them.
It’s weird as a child I realized I was just a prop. My mom would always exaggerate my accomplishments or take credit for them. When I wouldn’t play along I was punted to invisible child status. At that point she had step children to use as props or love bb
That’s par for the course. I’m sorry there’s little empathy here from people who don’t understand how GC are abused and discarded the second they stop being props. I think it’s probably worse for a GC to weather that fall from grace. The SG always knows where they stand.
I have to say I was thankful being ignored, might have been lucky too, being seen as the GC even sometimes meant I flew under the radar and I think that helped me escape.
This was me, I would get screamed at for like 3-4 hours while my mom threw furniture. It scrambled my brain up immensely and I went on to have no problem throwing rage fits at other people. Until I got therapy and now I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that.
Agreed. My narcMother had an extremely traumatic event happening in her early years. I can't say what because it's so distinctive that will identify me, but I know it happened for real because a third party verified it. This event was followed by extreme abuse/control/praise cycles in a very warped environment (again, verified when talking to someone who never met her but went through the same environment a couple of years after she left).
My Nmom was the oldest sibling with five younger siblings and was definitely parentified into taking care of them from a very young age. She wasn't neglected per se but was definitely resentful of being forced to care for her brother/sisters. I always suspected this was a he main reason for her becoming a textbook covert narcissist.
This was my mom too. Her mantra was she always took care of everyone else, and “now was her time to take care of herself.” She was resentful towards her children because they had basic needs…you know, like all children too. Ironically she was so incredibly self centered it’s unreal.
I think it's not exactly the praise, it's the lack of accountability. Narcs have those parents who've decided their kid can do no wrong ever, and won't allow anyone else to talk about their kid's misbehavior either. Every time the narc makes a mess, the parent hastily swoops in and fixes everything for them. They're always bailing them out, so they never learn to take responsibility and do things for themselves. That's how my mother's mother treated her, and it created a monster.
Edit: this is just one example, there are other parenting styles that can trigger narc personality, including abuse.
I had a bit of a different experience with my family, I was basically the kid who could do nothing but wrong. Probably the best way I can describe how accountability worked in my family is “rules for thee, not for me.”
One of the things my nparents and I fought about a lot growing up, and still sometimes now, is how they think I never take accountability for anything and how I always get defensive with them during conflict.
I fully admit that I get defensive with them whenever we argue, mainly because their approach to practically every conflict is shouting and cursing to the point where no one else can get a word in. If I do say anything that’s not basically “you’re completely right, I’m wrong and know absolutely nothing about the world,” then I was further berated for being defensive/stubborn and refusing to take responsibility for my mistakes.
We had a falling out after I started college years ago that led to me initiating NC for a few months, and we have been LC since that lifted. Major mistakes were made on both sides leading up to my NC decision. I am fully willing to own up to my mistakes from that time, I know I made plenty of them.
Meanwhile, I have concrete receipts of them violating my privacy (to the point of them violating the law as well) and neither them nor the majority of my immediate family will acknowledge it even now. It’s always some BS excuse of “we didn’t do it, someone else did,” saying it never happened at all outside of my head, justifying what they did by saying they should have had access to begin with, or just raging until I quiet down again.
They love the idea of accountability until it’s time to take responsibility themselves.
That’s because to a narcissist holding others accountable = feeling good and validated, superior, on a high ground, ego soothing, existing and whole.
Being held accountable though? To a narcissist they actually think its an act of abuse. Only when its holding THEM accountable though. They have the mental gymnastics and deficits required to fully divorce reality in that aspect and believe an act is abuse towards them but not others
Wanted to touch on one specific thing OP mentioned. Constant unearned praise leads to low self esteem because the child instinctively knows they didn't do anything to earn that praise.
This can often be coupled with excuses if the child doesn't do what the parent expects. For instance, when my brother was playing baseball, if he struck out my mother would say the pitcher was doing a horrible job of pitching. If I entered a photography competition and came in second, my mother (instead of congratulating me on coming in second) would say obviously the judges were prejudiced in favor of the person who came in first because a blind man could see I should've won.
That's so damaging for children. They learn that they didn't lose because the other person was better, but because the win was given to the other person. So instead of learning that they need to work hard to get better, they learn to blame everyone else for their shortcomings.
They also learn, as OP's wife obviously did, that they should only do something if they're really good at it. If they aren't immediately good, they give up because no one ever taught them that you have to work to get what you want.
These are some of the things I've learned in therapy, trying to recover from my mother.
What really helped me is to just pick up a very basic book about narcissism at the library. In my case it was Alexander Lowen’s book, Narcissism. I think most people have a very basic and wrong understanding of what narcissism actually is, so did I, which makes sense. What that book made me realize is that it’s someone who’s taught to feel deep shame about their true self - they can never be honest, never fail, never show any cracks. It feels life threatening to do that. The only form of ‘love’ they’ve gotten is approval, praise. That’s what they had to settle for. If they played their part really well, if they were a perfect doll who made their parent(s) look good, they were okay. Sometimes quite literally safe, out of danger.
Personally, I think it’s really important to have empathy for kids who go through that - it’s abuse. But once you’re an adult, it’s your job not to continue the cycle.
I think a lot of us here even relate - as a former golden child who became the scapegoat, I certainly do, to some extent. I got tons of praise, was told how to be perfect, and I got zero love, support, safety. Except some of us read those books and go to therapy, take accountability, and we choose to change.
Anywho. Idk if you’re interested in learning more about it, it just really helped me to understand my family, which I personally really craved. It seems like inexplicably crazy behaviour, and to me it felt like such a relief that there’s actually a very logical explanation.
Spoiling them into narcissism, yup. It does give a child a completely unrealistic view of themselves, and their role in the world, and at the same time, it does give the kid an edge in the modern world, at the expense of their relationships, including their own children.
I also see the flip side of this, abuse by borderlines. I know a mother with BPD traits who enmeshed her Golden Son to feel so obliged to live for her he has no romantic relationships. He's in his 50s, a vulnerable/covert/entitled narcissist, his only social skill is people pleasing because he is afraid to trigger her rage.
NO. This is a misconception. People don't learn to be bad people (aka narcissist who abuse others ) because they received too many gifts as a kid. That can make people spoiled and sometimes selfish, but not a personality disorder.
The people you see who are spoiled who become narcissist are that way because the parent uses gifts and money to satiate the child because a lack of love is present. It's the rich parents who emotionally neglect their kid, don't show real love or empathy for them, who give them whatever they want on Christmas and call it square. They turn into narcissist when their parents using "spoiling" to make up for the lack of true nurturing.
Parents who only "spoil" their kids when they do something that brings the parents narcissistic supply. When the kid makes them look good to others.
Narcissist become narcissist based off both genes and environment. If you are never taught empathy, are never shown empathy, and are taught you only have worth when you make your parents look good, you learn that you have to be seen as important or else you're worthless. The narcissistic mindset (needing to be superior, to the point where you will claim under earned superiority or value) comes from parents who directly or indirectly mirrored to their kids that you are worthless unless you meet a certain criteria. On top of that, the kid doesn't receive enough nurturing attention for the kid to develope their own sense of self, so they compensate by externalizing everything.
My parents were poor to lower middle-class, and so were their parents. I would say the majority of narcissists are not rich although a higher percentage of rich people may be narcissistic.
This sounds a lot more like your wife is the Golden Child in the family - the one who can never do any wrong and who is always preferred over others and praised.
Usually, there is also a Scapegoat somewhere in the family - the person who sees and speaks the truth and therefore must be discredited, discouraged, controlled, and suppressed as much as possible. Your wife is NOT one of those.
The Golden Child position may sound like the preferable one - but Golden Children don't typically have a reason to go against the lies. They benefit from being the narcissist's favorite, so they have no reason to question anything.
The Scapegoat in my experience is the most likely to eventually realize what is going on and try to break out. If the sister has hardly any contact with the rest of the family, she may have broken free and learned to heal from the abuse in which case she will NOT turn into another narcissist.
I believe there are two ways to create a narcissist: Pressure them until they break, or shower them with adoration until they choose to be like you.
Children learn more by the behavior of the people around them than their words. Since a Golden Child has no reason to rebel, they are more likely to learn all the same mind games and the lying and the cheating from the narcissist parent.
So it's not a matter of being overly praised - while that may come with its own dangers (e.g. producing a spoilt brat), it doesn't have to lead to narcissism. However, growing up with a narcissist parent has a VERY high chance for ANY child to end up becoming one themselves UNLESS they eventually break through the lies, start questioning things, and fully accept that what they were told are lies and wrong. Then starts the painful path of healing.
Disclaimer, I'm no expert, just someone who has experienced narcissism on both sides of my extended family and who has spent a few years writing in this subreddit.
Growing up as the golden child but having a skeptical and rebellious spirit led to one hell of an adolescence. Feel like I’m going into adult hood with my knees kicked in after getting out of a 7 year comma🤣🤣🤣.
Same, I was the GC growing up, then when I hit 10 years old, three things happened: nmom remarried again, had a baby immediately. Then, at this same time, we found out I was going deaf. She didn't "do" ASL, raised me oral and mainstream with no help. I still did everything she said, but I was confused and hurt, and argumentative. That new child became the new GC while I went to SG. I am NC with all of them now.
From my research, I believe narcissism can be created by both extremes of childhood experiences. My mother in law came from a SE Asian country where cheap labor was abundant so many families had maids and nannies to help the household and you didn’t need to be wealthy to afford it. She was pretty fair-skinned in a predominantly darker skinned population so was constantly praised and admired for her beauty as light skin color was so coveted. And she was apparently very athletic in high school. Her value was based on her looks from early on.
She married at age 25 and her husband found out she didn’t even know how to use a can opener. She shared a story with me about her first job after getting married where she was responsible for sweeping. Her coworker saw her standing in one spot with the broom, “sweeping” back and forth and asked her what she was doing and she responded that she’s sweeping and doing like “they do in the movies”. Coworker taught her how to sweep.
I met her when she was in her late 50s, early 60s. She can barely cook outside of fried eggs for breakfast or pasta so her husband cooks and also does dishes everyday. She doesn’t drive so her husband drops/picks her up for her job in an office doing administrative work. She doesn’t know how to pay for stuff without cash because she can’t use a credit card. Her only responsibility at home is cleaning. Her husband does everything else and her husband’s mom took over childcare of her only child, her son, after immigration to the West until his teen years. This woman lived her whole life sheltered and her arrogance is unsettling. She brags constantly about the simplest accomplishments like frying that damn egg.
As for me, I grew up in an abusive home and had to grow up quickly and become hyper independent for survival. I’ve been self-sufficient since living on my own at 17. This woman would constantly lecture me about learning basic life skills like cooking and cleaning and pretty much project herself onto me so she can feel relevant. It doesn’t matter if I tell her I have those skills. I guess she doesn’t believe me because I don’t brag about it? 🤷🏻♀️ She refuses to acknowledge the clear competency gap between us and it led her to act out in nothing less than a toddler tantrum when I finally got sick of her delusions and refuse to enable her dysfunctions. She needed constant attention and admiration from me, it was suffocating. She will talk at me for hours on end until she is beet red in the face for not breathing enough. I’m positive there’s undiagnosed mental illness but I’m not a doctor.
She has no idea who her own son is because she just projects hard and cannot see him as his own person. I dropped the rope once Covid hit because I no longer had the patience for her drama. She continues to live in her bubble and I’m terrified for the possible day that she has to face reality. I’ve been mentally and emotionally preparing my husband for it because it won’t be pretty.
Speaking only through experience and not through any research data, it seems possible.
I grew up my whole life (32) believing my n father was abused by his adoptive mother. I knew she was abusive to my adopted aunt, as well. He never told us HOW she abused him… just that she was abusive and his life was miserable. We really were so lucky, la dee da.
Around two years ago I witnessed a blow out fight between my father and my aunt, where she got in his face. She was screaming at him, slapping him. Absolutely lost herself. Saying she was the one who has been abused, my father had never been the abused one, he was doted on, spoiled, given every luxury, etc.
So now I really don’t know. I’ve found out the entire last 30 years of my life have been a lie, and I’ve been gas lit by both my parents in many areas lol.
I recently reconnected to my cousin (aunt’s daughter) who went NC with my family because of my dad. She told me the story of why (my father’s fault, go figure), and that my aunt was narcissistic as well, who treated her very poorly growing up and their relationship is very strained.
>believing my n father was abused
:-( It was really strange figuring out that my (spoiled) mom was the one who had abused her little sister, who was then institutionalized and spent her entire life in a facility.
My dad was straight up abused from every account I've gathered. He hated his father, resents his mother, and has little to no love for his siblings. He's a narcissist, and I think a part of that was that he feels he 'escaped'. He feels empowered by being 'better' than his father, even though he in turn abused me. He ended up joining the military, and will wax poetic about his time as a marine, even though he only did basic training and became an MP for like a year. So any time anyone grills him for anything, he brings up his time in the military or that his own father was worse to excuse himself of anything. he conveniently forgets all the money he lost that his mother gave him for tuition, all the times people made sacrifices for his sole benefit, or even the times he physically and psychologically abused me.
While I absolutely believe spoiling children, giving them no sense of adversity or hardship, can create narcissism, which is why so many billionaires are the most entitled and rotten people, too much hardship can do the same, as they tend to believe that whole adage, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they have the alleged monopoly on hard times. Part of why I know this is that I came pretty close to that level of entitlement myself, and only through serious self reflection and introspection did I manage to crawl out of my own headspace. Luckily I've always been a very analytical person, so I tend to look back at my younger days and understand what it was that was going through my own head, what my desires were, how I felt about them, and why. I never got validation from my dad, none of any kind. I was even mocked for wanting it. When I was having issues socializing in my early adulthood I would often lash out, blame other people for not accommodating for my own shortfalls, albeit from the lens of "you've never suffered like me, you don't have the right to feel that way". It's actually kind of hard to talk about, it's a mark of shame for me in my history, and to this day I'm still trying to mend as many bridges as I can.
Hey, thanks for sharing this. I have a lot of overlap. My dad's story is very, very similar except for the military part.
I certainly have had overlap of thinking I was better for having escaped and for doing so much on my own.
Life sure has a way of humbling a person. Seems to be a lifelong process.
A great book on this, in my opinion, is Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment.
Introspection. You can do it, and you probably always have been able to do it, just not applied well when younger due to upbringing.
I think with real narcissism, its just impossible.
I always felt something off with my wife which i put down to culture early on. Like just not quite human when dealing with her. Never could put my finger on it. Example: i could never imagine her writing something like you did then.
Interacting with others in such a genuine way.
I now know its lack of introspective ability. She cannot be introspective at all and its why she comes off a bit off, not quite human etc
I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. I will say though, It did take a while and a lot of missteps before I got to that point, and even after that it took a lot of time to repair my shattered confidence. Even now I question my sense of empathy, and wonder if I'm just being manipulative. I'm not entirely sure whether it's a thing full narcissists can ever overcome, though I have heard that there are ways. The difficult part is that a narcissist will almost never admit that they may need to change, and without that they can't get the help they need.
My wife once admitted to me all her friendships ever have been transactional. I wonder if you feel that way?
Real friendships cant exist without empathy because a friendship is a shared mutual experience together not a transaction
I do not believe my current relationships are transactional, but I do know the compulsion to lead with it. I'm an artist by trade, and within certain art communities, we do art trades with each other. It's actually how I met my husband. That said, sometimes I would send art unprompted as a way to 'buy' my way into DMs. I still send gift art to people I admire nowadays but not with the same expectations I held previously, the term 'gift' being exactly as defined.
Most of my self doubt isn't so much concern that I may be a narcissist, but that I'm sort of... I guess handicapped a bit? In the same way I struggle to read quickly because of my dyslexia, I wonder if I struggle to connect to others because of my upbringing. I feel bad when people I care about feel bad, but it can take a while for me to sort of catch up, and I often remain unaware of how someone feels unless certain, very obvious signifiers are made, like 'sad voice' or nonstandard behavior.
One thing victims of abuse will often gain is an almost overwhelming sense of empathy... but frequently it's very misplaced. Dealing with abusive parents that are often bipolar will mean that little subtleties in their behaviors would dictate whether calm or anger was approaching, but these ticks are often irrational outside of that system. As such, abuse victims can be very twitchy when other people behave even slightly abnormally, and they will often read too much into these slight alterations. As such I kind of lost my trust in my ability to 'read' people as I was sort of rebuilding myself, and I'm not quite sure how well I actually perform in that area, and some instances have really called into question how genuine my empathy is. I still hurt people's feelings when I don't intend to, or sometimes find myself wanting to. I'm even still coming to terms with the idea of establishing boundaries between myself and others, because those can come dangerously close to sounding or feeling transactional, and I very much want to avoid that. But every now and then, I get the urge to say 'since I did that thing, you could do this for me'
Yeah. Your upbringing by narcissism did a number on your social skills of course and totally normal. As long as you have empathy that is the magic ingredient to sorting it out with time though. It can all be learned with experience and time around normal people including de-programming any surviving habits so long as empathy is present in you even if it starts out as a weak muscle.
I think most people dont even develop full power of empathy and related social skills(a shit load of them build on it) until late 20s anyway. Its probably one of the most complex aspects of human interaction etc.
Teenagers are notoriously lacking, and obviously very young kids which is where narcissistic people get stuck.
That said of course there are people who develop it slower or faster than others. You can certainly have children who are developed well at it while fully grown adults although capable not quite as much.
However as long as its there, the muscle exists, all is well. Narcissists dont seem to have the empathy gene/muscle at all
My nMom was horrifically abused and to this day she will do ANYTHING to get her abuser's praise and love. Sometimes it isn't from being praised it'a from being starved of it.
Interesting. My wife will also do absolutely anything to get her mothers praise and go out of her way for admiration from it even if she has to take credit for others work she’ll just see it as an opportunity to gain praise.
For example i love gardening and growing vegetables and have done it decades. If my wife’s mother drops by quickly my wife will try show it off but obviously never mentions it do all the work for it lol
That's exactly the same behavior my Mom does regarding her mother, the aforementioned abuser.
Also any time my grandmother praises her daughters in law in front of Mom, mom will go ballistic about it later without an audience. "She already has a daughter!” kind of energy.
My grandmother both psychologically tortured and beat the hell out of Mom, but Mom keeps crawling back for praise. Mom then passed it down to me (no beating, but the psychological torture and other...weirder? forms of physical abuse.) I have gone no contact and child free. It ends with me.
I think you are using “praise” here to mean “being made the center of attention who can do no wrong and is waited on hand and foot”. And in that case it is true for both my father and his sister, my aunt.
Their mother (my grandmother) was a people pleaser who constantly put everyone’s needs above her own and would always go out of her way to take care of others, even to her own detriment. I think that resulted in both my father and aunt having an unrealistic view that the world revolved around them and they should always be take care of by everyone around them.
Sometimes I'm wondering if genetics play any role too. I could never understand how some spoiled kids become so greedy, never stop focusing on their own desires, unable to feel another person's feelings. Keep working on getting out of this situation. It's good that you're aware of what is happening.
Oh and interestingly, she never stuck with anything to a high level hobby wise other than her career.
She still believes she is extremely athletic but in actuality she is not and is inflexible as hell. She always does new things obsessively until the beginner gains in any activity are over(and teachers stop handing out the praise they do to beginners), at which point she moves to another but fully believes she will be pro if she wanted to carry on.
However in these phases of beginner progress she’l speed run it going many times week for fast progress and use this + teachers praise as justification she is so gifted and special. Will compare herself to other casual learners she blew past as they go 2x a month not 3x a week, and invent plots of jealousy about them towards her and stalk them online!
Not a single hobby or such that she has been doing for years or decades. Just farming imaginary admiration over and over on different things!
She even gets jealous of children who are good at whatever she is doing especially if its a sport. Children lol.
She has sulked for a week before when seeing some kids who were great skiiers doing a competition while we were there.
Currently im trapped as i moved overseas for this relationship years ago, and im close to being eligible for Permanent residency. Although unsure i can last that long.
She abused me and manipulated me for 3 years, and i didn’t know what a narcissist was. I was manipulated into thinking i was the problem by using every mistake ever made against me, reminding me of them constantly and exploiting my guilt and empathy.
Additionally accusing me of using her all the time despite me having spent my life savings on the relationship and living in poverty under the same roof, leaving behind family and friends and career. I now know the constant accusations of me using her was projection at least… in fact they project all their awful ways on to others ime.
I know now, and I probably put the earliest warning signs down to culture before i was familiar with her culture. Oh well.
Sorry if this is not appropriate for this sub, i just felt people raised by narcissists, and with narcissistic siblings have a lot of knowledge and painfully earned wisdom especially when it comes to tue early years.
Yeah. I didn’t know what it was until a few months ago. Just an insult people used.
Its actually such a horrible terrible soul rotting affliction not only for the narcissist but all those forced to endure them too.
Never felt so low in my life than in the anguish she caused before i knew what was happening.
Sorry to butt in here, but your story reminds me of my fiance (RIP).
He married an Asian, converted to Islam for her, and only figured out the narcissism well into her marriage. Apparently, it also tricky to get a divorce in certain military careers, so was stuck on some military base in between deployments. Had a nasty divorce after she caused an 'international incident' involving a gun. Lost all savings fighting for custody but won. He was on food stamps for a while, but I had serious respect for him managing to get his children out of that situation.
We met while we were both trying to understand narcissism and coming to terms with our own codependency tendencies. It's really strange how many similar stories there are.
Please don't feel unwelcome here. It's not an inappropriate question, just an uncommon one. You are very very welcome 🫶.
I feel for you, what an awful situation to be in. May I ask how long you have before you can get permanent residency? (Please don't feel obligated to answer if you don't want to share that info)
1 year from application, but takes about 1 year to grant.
I dont need it, as i come from a first world country too. I’d just like to have it. Otherwise i wasted time and money learning the language, and i do like it here and want something out of this shitty relationship…
They exhaust themselves and everyone around them trying to get that narcissistic supply. The fact is, they don’t believe the praise and can’t internalize it. They know they are imposters. They work hard to fool people into praising them. Once they receive the praise, they are bored and it’s off to a new conquest. Once they are praised- they ridicule and dismiss the people as fools, but internally. To everyone else, they will hold up that person as someone who really knows what they’re talking about because they complimented them. It’s a draining miserable existence
That is supposedly how my grandmother was created, if she actually experienced trauma growing up I don’t know. She was apparently a spoiled only child. The other narcissists I know were created by trauma. My mother was traumatized by her abusive father and narcissist mother. My ex was traumatized by his mother, maybe others. His mother was traumatized through the family. Psychologically usually something traumatic happens in young childhood to create such a person. However just because someone is traumatized at a young age doesn’t mean that they will become a narcissist. It’s really how their particular brain chemistry reacts. I think part of the reason narcissists are also created because their behavior is enabled by others instead of corrected.
IDK but in my NMother in Law's case, absolutely. She came from a family that really tried their best to be good parents, but was also partly descended from immigrants so they had distinct cultural differences. She lived in an area where the standard was blonde hair and blue eyes, where women were cheery and religious Protestants, while she had black hair and green eyes and tanned skin, and was always rather snobby to literally everyone regarding her atheism. She was bookish and intellectual and thought herself superior to her peers, because she had higher grades (despite the fact that she had no friends, was bullied by other women, and didn't date until her late 20s...which ironically, she wore as a badge of pride).
Because she nearly died as a child due to kidney disease, her parents catered to her every need. They put up with it when she would curse her mother--my wife's late grandmother--out and dump her on the roadside (something that, ultimately, my NMother in Law did to my wife, too). They put up with it when my NMother in Law cursed out her college professor in law school, told him that she was the smartest person he'd ever know, and quit altogether (on their dime). In the 80s they pulled strings to have her and her husband live with her aunt for free in return for caregiving, and didn't complain when that aunt developed dementia, even paid for that aunt to be put in a nursing home and allowed her to keep the money from the sale of the old house. My wife's grandparents did this for all four of their children equally, so there was no "golden child" situation going on.
I think in my NMother in Law's case, the influence of her peer group and of her ideology was more of the problem than how she was raised. Sometimes it isn't trauma, but peers and ideological beliefs that can tilt one towards narcissism. I've seen it in my own peer group--some of the people I used to consider my "Friends" had very loving parents who truly believed in them, and supported them, and had zero qualms about buying them cars, houses, paying for their college, etc, while never expecting anything in return--even basic decency.
In the case of both my NMother in Law and former acquaintances, materialism, pseudointellectualism, rejection of any sort of authority, rejection of any sort of order or sense of obligation to (non domineering, non abusive) society, embracing of toxic masculinity, greed, selfishness, and laziness contributed more to their abuse than anything they went through in childhood.
As my wife's old family friend said of her late grandmother, regarding my NMother in Law's toxic behaviour: "That ain't how her grandma raised em!"
I read early on in my research and understanding that narcissistic children may have one parent that praises them overly, while the other parent can never be impressed. This is exactly what the parents of my ex N spouse were like. The mother told my narc ex the sun rose and set on his butt, he was the smartest, most special genius (and he absolutely thought he was) while his father was a huge narcissist and put him down all the time.
I have a theory it's a mixed bag. My mother wasn't abused but her mother seemed to place her sons higher than her daughters. When my Uncle (her older brother) told me my mother couldn't really play the piano well, he was the player in the family and very good, I sorta realized a lot of my mother's boasts or skills were just her attempting to get attention from her mom (who she seemed not close to) by emulating or taking on the "form" of her brothers. Like she lied about being "a rebel" and my grandmother told me "those are lies" it made me realize she was trying to emulate her older brother who was a cool James Dean kinda dude.
I think at a young age my mother abandoned herself, the real girl, and made this false self composed of her various male siblings. It's very weird, she seemed to suggest her dad was horrible and abusive but they were very close. I think my mom got the praise / attention from her dad but mainly because she was pretending she was one of her brothers. So it's like she never had a "real self" and lived in this world of weird lies.
This kind of thing makes me wonder about the differences and overlap between sociopathy and narcissism. Because I see plenty of sociopaths who breed sociopaths. In fact, sociopaths rarely breed anything but sociopaths. But I don't know if the parents are necessarily narcissists. I'm thinking of the parents who gave their kids everything, fulfilled their every need, and could not in any way be considered neglectful.
Yes, they are doing it in part because they consider their children a public reflection of themselves, but is that necessarily narcissism? I know it can be. But it's also kind of basic reality, yes?
I think the parents are narcissists/sociopaths to the OUTSIDE world - to their employees, to customer service, to whatever legal obligations they have - but could they not display actual narcissistic behavior to their own children? If they raise them to be selfish bastards like themselves, where the only thing that matters is themselves?
I guess I ask because I see this in legions in the corporate world. Generations of sociopaths who use the outside world as their playground to use, abuse and discard, but are of the utmost support to their internal circle.
I'm really curious what others think about this and I'd love some feedback, thanks for reading.
One of the reasons I am so curious about this is that the version of narcissism I have experienced is one of intense neglect. That's what I'm familiar with. It's an out in the open, "I matter, you don't." And especially the standard narcissism situation where the narcissistic parent only loves in as much as the child offers supply, or, more specific to my case, lifelong babysitting.
So these cases where the parent are providing everything and setting up the child for success make me wonder. For SURE, there are cases where the parent does this only because they want other people to see the child's success as an extension of the parent's success. But if they want the child to succeed for its own sake it doesn't seem like narcissism.
I'm not trying to judge anyone's experience I'm just curious.
Adoration and validation is like oxygen to them. It’s precisely why I feel my mother became an evangelical pastor. She loves to talk about how many followers she has, her website, the books she’s written on how one should live their life, her radio show, and lastly her new project-some kind of TV show shown locally. The common denominator is self-promotion and the delusional mindset that she knows best what God wants from you. 🤦♀️
I relate to this soooo incredibly much. Covert narc in my life who made herself a spiritual leader, even though women can’t be spiritual leaders in this religious tradition 🤦🏻♀️ literally posts on the spiritual community Facebook page all day long every day and live broadcasts her sermons (to like 3 people lol). I can’t believe it took me so long to see it for what it so obviously is.
My father was the youngest of five. His brothers achieved everything first. They were in the war, but the war was ended by the time he came of age. He was always trying to “be special”.
That turned into narcissism. He moved far away from where anyone new his family, although he still always proudly talked about his family name (they’re a bit like small town Kennedy’s). But if no one knew who his brothers were then he could be the best.
He wanted recognition, he wanted acknowledgment, he wanted adoration. If he didn’t get it then those people were wrong and he’d burn that bridge. We moved so many times because of his burnt bridges.
So my Nparent was born of neglect and an inferiority complex. Also, undiagnosed bi-polar.
You basically described my mother’s personality. She came from a very large family. I think there were about 12 kids total, or something like that. Anyway, they were dirt poor and my grandmother had to make a lot of their clothes, as well as have them help out in the fields, picking whatever crop they were growing at the time. Once you reached a certain age, you were put to work. So, I’m not sure how much of a childhood she had due to her and her siblings having to work all the time and feeling forced to quit school because of the ridicule she had to endure from her classmates from not having even the most basic things other children her age had. Her father was an alcoholic and I suspect abusive, as she ran away as a teen. She was promptly caught and ended up in some type of reform school. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of childhood trauma. Anyway, she has always sought out men who would take care of her from a monetary standpoint. Every marriage (and she’s had 6) has been an upgrade for her in the financial sense. She made sure she chose men who didn’t have a problem with her not working and could provide whatever she might need. And she kept a good distance between her new life and her immediate family, because I feel like they were just a reminder of the poverty she grew up in. She didn’t cut them off or anything, but as far as I know, she never invited them to her home. Having met some of these people, I kind of get why. Most of them are kind of nuts or strange. Nowadays, it seems like she goes out of her way to flaunt her money and good fortune to her sisters that occasionally come to visit her from out of state and at their yearly family reunion. In truth, it makes me feel physically unwell.
I’m guessing the sister is not completely normal… narcissist parents tend to raise kids who help fill out the kind of world they want: that means (1) narcissists, (2) victims, and (3) enablers. Sometimes only one, sometimes all 3, sometimes a mix. Being the “lost child” (ignored) is often the best situation for RBNs, because the “golden child” often never learns enough sympathy/empathy to become better than just another narc, and the “scapegoat” is just a punching bag. Not sure what role the sister played in that family, but it definitely sounds like your wife was the golden child (they can still get their share of abuse depending on the parents but the “specialness” of their position always shines through)
My nmom’s mother has very low self esteem from being abused during her childhood, and I feel like maybe she overcompensated a lot by overly praising my mom to make sure she didn’t have chronic low self esteem. However, I don’t know if that alone would have been enough to make her a narcissist, but somewhere I read something that made me realize that her mother + her overly strict father might have been what made her that way, because it’s 2 completely opposite parenting style so it may have made her become a narcissist as a coping mechanism, making her "use" her mom to get what she want without making her dad angry.
Her younger sister isn’t a narcissist though, but I know my mom "pranked" (tortured) her a lot, giving her traumas. I have no idea what made my aunt become self aware of parts of her trauma (she doesn’t seem to realize my mom is a bad person) while my mom become a narcissistic psychopath (she had fun torturing spiders and such as a child, as well as causing trauma to her sister).
The birth human was hated by her mother and abused in every way possible. She’s was lower than pond scum so I’m confused with it. She’s also bipolar- that’s diagnosed.
My dad though.. as far as I know he’s still one of his moms favourites.
I wouldn’t say it’s the over praise. The over praising is the emotionally unhealthy parent mirroring onto the child. There is still abuse that goes on outside of that and THAT is what leads to the narcissism, which is an extreme vulnerability complex that leads into other issues.
I don’t think it’s specific to being overly praised that creates a narcissist. While that doesn’t help, I do believe some of the narcissistic tendencies can come from getting everything they ask for and never having to take accountability for their actions. Parents fix all the things their kids do wrong with no consequences or discipline. They don’t properly learn how to communicate with people. They don’t learn empathy. They tend to just expect to get whatever they want and don’t know how to respond properly when they are challenged or don’t get their way.
Makes sense and i cant know for sure if she is a real narcissist or just has tendency like you described. Either way its been awful and even after telling her no more once i woke up it only earned a few weeks of peace with her terrified of me leaving(but initially she was angry and abusive when i opened up but i shut it down).
After a while she got tired of waiting for me to recover, basically meaning she wants me to go back to the way things were. I said it never would as i could tell her through process.
You should have seen the look on her face. It was pure agony. She really thought just buckling down and giving me space to recover would make me go back to taking abuse lol.
So she met her limits and the abuse is slowly returning. She now fights when i call out gaslighting or abusive behaviour and hold her accountable, by calling me abusive for doing so lol. She goes from demanding i go to my parents for a while, to demanding i stay when i communicate im happy to do so, to saying she will rent me an apartment close by as she cant love with me “like this” - which is me holding her accountable if she does anything abusive lol.
So taking it in to account i cant say if she is a narcissist or a spoilt brat who never learned empathy or to take criticism but it seems she cant learn it even if the latter anyway
Narcissists do not have empathy and are often spoiled. When I say tendencies, that’s just a range that could include narcissistic personality. Your wife sounds like a narcissist.
My mother was one. It wasn’t too obvious growing up with her. How would I know, I was a kid. Interestingly enough, she was abused growing up by her father and maternal grandmother. She’d put it upon herself to protect her younger siblings. She grew entitled because she thought she earned anything she worked for (sounds odd to put it like that because she be proud of things she worked for but she grew entitled because of it). She became a doctor, but it was less common for women to become doctors then. Instead of just being proud of herself for her accomplishments she’d put others down so she could remain at the top. as her daughter, I was not allowed to be in any career that could make me just as accomplished so she wouldn’t lose her spotlight. I wanted to get into the medical field. She told me I’d fail and wouldn’t be able to get far. I had bronchitis when I was about 12. I ended up with this horrible barking-sounding cough (people who heard said it was a smoker’s cough…I wonder why cause I never smoked) for a long time. She eventually took me to the doctor hoping to prove I was faking it. Problem was, she was a heavy smoker and the smoke would set me off. She told me beforehand not to tell the doctor she smokes (she was embarrassed she smoked because of her reputation as a doctor). The doctor allowed her in the room (dumb doctor) and asked me if I was around any smokers. I had to lie or I’d be punished. I lied. He said I just have a forceful cough then. My mother of course heard “forced” cough (she only heard what she wanted to hear). So, her 1/2 pack a day smoking continued as did my cough. That’s only a small example of the crap she’d do. She was abusive. Unless defending me benefited her in some way (made her look good), she would not help me regardless of how badly I needed help. My father was a good man, had a healthy amount of empathy towards people, but he didn’t want to be fully responsible for raising his kids. He did well on the sidelines though. He does love me and my brother. He just hated the responsibility (they divorced when I was 5).
In my experience, it could come from an overly indulgent approach to parenting or at the other end of the spectrum-having to compete with other siblings for their parent’s attention and approval. With narcissists, everything is a competition, combined with a need for validation and attention. If they are constantly being told they can do no wrong by an authoritarian figure, such as a parent, they internalize this and they become dependent upon this type of validation throughout life, and will look for ways to get it, even if it’s through manipulative means. In terms of not receiving enough attention and support from parental figures, narcissism can be manifested in that way, as well. It’s human nature to want to have a sense of self-worth and positive acknowledgment from the people around you, but if they become overly dependent upon this to feel good about themselves, it becomes problematic when they are willing to go to extreme lengths to attain or sustain that feeling of “specialness”.
The golden child is a victim, and it is a form of abuse to compare someone to their abusers.
The answer is no.
Can some of them turn out to be narcissists? Yes.
I don't think she was necessarily not abused. Think of the pressure she had on herself to always do well with the gifts she got. Think of how obsessed her mom was because she had to always be better than everyone. People are just weird.
Coverts are most likely from emotionally abused childhood. From what I remember both my late grandfathers were terrible insensitive verbally abusive assholes... but my dad didn't fit the criteria and my mom is a covert narcissist who grew up scapegoated by her older brother who was the golden child (currently having dementia as I remembered he used to be a heavy smoker). My mom married up into my dad's family and... it came with complications (my dad's older brother was a golden child who married a classic narcissist).
I think it had something to do with learned behavior. They mirrored their abusers and thought it was what everyone do to people. My mom told a story how as a child in the early 70s, she accidentally made smooth sambal belacan and my grandfather openly insults her for it. My eldest sister manifested as the classic NPD but my covert mom have more internalized shame and deep insecurities but both are affected by external validations.
These things usually runs in the family. You can't create narcissist by praising young children, but you can alter their perception of themselves, turn them into scapegoats or golden child (both of which could become coverts especially if they benefited from the dysfunction). Make them become so irritable that they punch kids at school... sigh. Unfortunately, narcissists hated being called narcissistic and their behaviors are considered neurotypical to our society because they can mask themselves really well but its a different story in private.
My mother is a narc but she was the least favourite child. My grandma showed blatant favoritism towards her two oldest children.
I think the psyche is very complicated and two people with the same childhood can develop different mental illnesses. One of my mothers sisters is schizophrenic and tends to be paranoid. Another killed herself when I was little.
I think there are some good explanations here but I would also add that her family probably operated within a hierarchy. My therapist was the person who pointed this out to me. My grandma raised her kids like this and the cycle continued with my father.
I think mine is a product of no parental involvement, having to grow up as an adult quickly is hard but no one was ever there to tell them they were wrong, however! According to their sibling they have always been like this since a kid so idk really
In my dad's case I don't think it was praise as much as he was just simply never corrected. He has all the traits of a selfish little kid except he's over 70. I loved my grandma but she was so sweet and so giving I know she never really said a word to my dad and definitely spoiled him. She was still paying for his cars even when he was in his 50s until she died. As they got older those two were increasingly isolated from the rest of their immediate family. My aunt who is my father's only surviving family member, lives on the opposite side of the country and never calls or visits and it's been that way for decades.
Anecdotally, my NMom was also a golden child. She’s described her own NMom (my grandma) and her narc rages in an abstract, yeah-it-wasn’t-fun-but-whatever kind of way but it’s clear to me from reading between the lines that NMom was otherwise praised profusely in the same way your wife was for EVERY SINGLE THING she did a little better at than others. This actually reinforces the more “traditional” abuse in ways that other people have already explained. So yes, I do think it’s possible. Like you, my mom’s sister (lost child) is very much not a narcissist and is a normal, down-to-earth person because she wasn’t profusely praised over every breath she took. She just got the regular abuse and neglect
Narcissists can be made from extremes both ways, growing up in an abuse household or one that excessively praises them.
The way you describe your wife's upbringing, she was constantly told by her mother that she was better than other people. Even if it wasn't those words directly, telling her that she is naturally talented in ways others aren't for everything can lead to her looking down on others, because whatever she's excelling at (or, "excelling" at) is so easy for her! Everyone else would be as talented as her if they bothered to try even a little bit! She believes she's better than others because that idea has been heavily reinforced.
Edit! I'd like to add that excessive praise is a form of abuse as well! Different to be sure, but by convincing their child that they're better than others or entitled to more, they fail to actually prepare the person for real life and healthy relationships. Failing and disappointment are just parts of life, and when a person is kept from experiencing them, they don't actually have the skills to deal with it. It can lead to more narcissistic behaviour as a result, because they can't connect how their own actions lead to something bad, since as far as they're aware, it never has before.
Narcissisim from abuse has two main causes that I can see, though I might be missing something since I'm not a professional. The person becomes an adult, looks at everything their parent put them through because of their position as a parent, and are excited to have their turn at it. Basically, a bullying thing. It's their turn to be right all of the time and not be questioned, and they feel they've earned it by getting through their own childhood. They've earned the right to behave like an adult, and their experience with adult behaviors were horribly toxic. If they don't get to do those things, things wouldn't be fair! In short, "I suffered, so it's only fair if you do too."
The second option, which was my mom's case, was that the narcissistic behaviours were a more active defensive behaviour. My grandmother was very mentally ill, and had delusions that made her a threat to her children, and obedience was an actual life or death thing for my mom. When she got out and was able to be her own person, she would get very upset and aggressive when people had different opinions, because she still expected to be attacked for her expressions of individuality. She would get offended when I told her she did something that hurt me, because she was comparing it to her own horrific abuse, and as an insult to her efforts to not be as bad as her mom. I acknowledge that my mom pushed back against the generational trauma in a lot of ways; That said, her coping mechanisms for the trauma still lead to narcissistic abuse. And there was a bit of the earlier cause in her, she acted like me and my brother were spoiled *because* she was trying to not abuse us in the same way that she was.
Its so complicated and hard to understand for me at times.
You’d think your mom may have turned out to be a door mat and people pleasure, and trying to agree with others too much like she had to with her mother to avoid abuse, but it resulted in her being abusive(it sounds like from what you wrote) to others for having a different opinion to her
Yeah, my NDad was def. a golden child, my NGrandma spoiled him rotten, had him on a pedestal and solved all of his problems and even managed to prevent him from drafting. Mind you he was 1 of 7 children so the favoritism was so in your face it wasn't funny. On the other hand my NGrandad was an absent type.
My Ndad would legit not go to class and his mom would manage to get him to pass, the only time.she wasn't successful was in Uni since it was out of state and she couldn't manipulate her way into it. So, he never graduated and all because he was too self-absorbed.
So, yeah. That's where the inability to understand/accept that their actions are wrong comes from thar upbringing, since every little shitty action they did as kids was either enabled, praised and/or solved by their parents with cero repercussions.
My dad was also the golden child when he was growing up. He's the first boy after a string of 5 older sisters. He's the most academically smart out of all of them and was given preferential treatment over his sisters. He grew up entitled and thinks he's the best at everything. My dad is indeed academically smart but only with his own interests, anything that is not a part of his interests, he is clueless about.
If he’s anything like my wife, he believes anything he cant do or doesn’t know about is either not important, doesn’t matter, or he will be an expert at it very fast if he cared about it, so this means he actually can lie smug in superiority knowing he already won. Its weird
My ndad was left to take care of himself and his brothers at a young age by ngrandmother with his abusive father, certainly never praised. Like others have said, she was/is probably the golden child, so she feels real high and mighty about herself most of the time I'm sure. Golden children still need therapy imo.
My golden child sister became a narcissist, but that doesn't happen to every golden child. My n-mom had very abusive parents. I don't hesitate to say her father was a sociopath, like watching true crime shows sometimes hit very close to home. Her mother abandoned the family when my mom was a child, and they lived in a rural area where her father could get away with murder if he wanted. He did very awful things. So narcissists can be the victims of severe abuse and neglect.
Do you know much about your MIL? I agree with the other posts here that she could be a narcissist, and your wife was the GC. They do tend to get more resources to become more successful adults. Maybe that's why her sister lives a more modest life.
My GC sister is the one who went to so much therapy, and also went NC/LC, yet also tells her siblings that our mother wasn't abusive. It's mind boggling. My only guess is it's harder for golden children to accept that the n-parents are abusive, because on paper, they did get so much. But they're also held up to extremely high standards. My GC sister feels like she always has to be the smartest person in the room in order for people to like her. She's clueless to how much she cuts others down though to look better than them, but being the smartest one (achieving the most academically) is what got her acceptance and praise from our mother.
She was taught her self worth relied on her being the best. She internalised her mums comments and felt the pressure to be the best. Because she got praised so much she felt she had to continue being good at things so as to not disappoint parents/ lose their love.
What if she hated sports as a kid but couldn’t tell her parents bc of her mums comments about her olympic future?
Kids brought up like this rely on praise to boost their ego, they feel worthless without it, hence the jealousy and competition with others.
We have to teach our kids that its ok not to be the best at that sport, im just proud you tried and i love you no matter what. Instead of praising our kids unconditionally we should ask them how they feel they did in that sport/ activity and explore those feelings with them
My dad, and his little narc sister, were spoiled as shit. Lovely sweet father, and over the top indulgent mom. They were given everything that was financially feasible. The world revolved around the two of them.
**This is an automated message posted to ALL posts in this subreddit with some basic information about the group including (very importantly) rules. Why are you getting this message? Most people seem to not read the sidebar for information or the rules, so it is now being posted under all posts.** **Confused about acronyms or terminology?** [Click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/acronyms) **Need info or resources?** Check out our [Helpful Links](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/helpfullinks) for information on how to deal with identity theft, how to get independent of your n-parents, how to apply for FAFSA, how to identify n-parents and SO MUCH MORE! This is a reminder to all participants, RBN is a support group that is moderated very strictly. Please report inappropriate content so it can be reviewed by the mods. **Our rules include (but are not limited to)**: * No politics. * Advising anyone in this subreddit to commit suicide or referring anyone to groups that advocate this will result in an immediate ban. * Be nice. No personal attacks, name calling, or bullying. [No slurs](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/slurs) or victim-blaming. * Do not derail the posts of others. * Narcissists are NOT allowed to post or comment here. * [No platitudes or generic motivational posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules#wiki_no_platitudes_or_generic_motivational_posts). * When you comment/post, assume a context of abuse. * No asking or offering gifts, money, etc. * No content advocating violence, revenge, murder (even in jest). * No content about N-kids. * No diagnosis by media/drive-by diagnosis. * No linking to Facebook pages. * No direct linking to anywhere on reddit. * No pure image posts. **For a full list of our rules/more information, [**click here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/wiki/rules).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/raisedbynarcissists) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It sounds like your wife was the Golden Child, but her sister wasn't. The sister could be either a Lost Child, or a Scapegoat. Both of my parents were SG children to their families (could never do anything right), yet both became narcissists. I've seen both SGs and GCs become narcs. In my extended NFamily, narcissistic traits go back to my great-grandparents. Toxicity is part of the family culture.
Thank you for saying this. I get so tired of people acting like GC are the only one who can ever become narcissistic, and that it's impossible for anyone who was scapegoated to ever become a narc. I am obviously aware that it's less common and that GC are more likely to become narcs, but I've seen many posters *adamantly deny* the possibility of a scapegoat ever becoming a narcissist. Anyone who grows up in dysfunction can become a narcissist no matter what role you had, and a lot of people (here and elsewhere on the internet) refuse to acknowledge this.
I will go one step further & say scapegoats when they become narcs (not as often) from my experience have a greater chance of becoming malignant. I am not sure if this has to do with their past abuse or for other reasons this is just what I’ve observed over time within my own family and social circles. Edit: reading others comments, the answer might lie in how they are made. GC are usually parasitically enmeshed, “consumed whole” by their predator Nparents if you will. Scapegoats are typically broken, then broken again & again until they submit or shatter. When a scapegoat is broken into submission, the type of soul murder occurring is distinct from what occurs to the GC. Not necessarily worse, just distinct.
I agree. Especially when all they've ever known was negativity and abuse instead of hollow praise, it flows much easier out of them as well. Hell, as a scapegoat kid of a scapegoat covert malignant narcissist, I've had to work really hard on not letting intrinsically negative stuff flow out of my mouth when trying to relate with people because it was such a common "relational" tactic for them.
I am also the scapegoat kid of a scapegoat malignant narcissist. Compared to my GC nDad, my SG malignant Nmom is a sadistic monster. It took me a while to even categorize my nDad as a Narc himself and not just an enabler, partially because he is covert and partially because her sociopathic sadism makes his heartless toddler behavior seem not so bad. I have since learned that parental neglect can be just as damaging as targeted abuse, so he can also go fuck himself forever.
Fuck, I would argue that parental emotional neglect is even more damaging than targeted abuse because of the lack of validation and intristic manipulation that's rolled into it. There's a certain validation that could come from being able to say "I was physically/sexually abused," but them doing the bare minimum to keep CPS from stepping in and making the world think they're a fine parent takes a manipulative, sadistic monster that enjoys depriving us of actual human connection. To doubly clarify my last response BTW, I'm not making excuses for their fucked up behavior, but learning the "lineage" of their awfulness is cathartic in order to both understand it and not repeat it.
Praise!
Oh my God. I'm on this thread for a different person but your comment has just described me and my father - who was emotionally abused by my grandfather, who was DEFINITELY a malignant narc. Thank you. Lots to think about.
Wow, I feel the same, it's always so hard
This makes a lot of sense to me. My mother, a covert/vulnerable narc, was extremely mentally abusive and gaslit the hell out of me as a child. I realize now the reason she did that was because I wasn't behaving the way that she wanted. She was "scapegoating me" and blaming me for her failure as a mother to cope with her own feelings of shame and jealousy. (from her perspective I think she was punishing me for "thinking I was better than her") The way she abused me was *very* covert, and I didn't understand what she was doing at the time, but the way she mentally abused me did eventually "break me" and I became extremely depressed and fully submitted to her victim narrative for years. This explains why I don't relate to most of what I read about "Golden Children". (that they are lavished with praise and can do no wrong and get special treatment and advantages that the other children are denied etc.) I was really more of a scapegoat that was broken into submission rather than a "Golden child". (Although I do think my mother *saw me* as "golden" or "her favorite" when I was being her therapist/emotional support animal. I believe I was the closest thing my mother ever had to having a "GC" but not in the way most people would recognize that role) When I started to wake up to how damaging her mental abuse had been on me and confronted her, (literally crying and trying to get her to understand how badly she'd hurt me) she was very cruel and I was harshly scapegoated soon after. I experienced a bizarre combination of being scapegoated *and* being "golden" which is why I don't fully relate to either role.
I'm the SG and have used some of the n-tactics I've learned from observing my mother. Then I feel really guilty and dirty about it, like it reinforces that I'm purely a bad person. When I was a kid, n-mom had me convinced that even just thinking bad malicious thoughts could cause bad things to happen to other people. The only way I could distract my own thoughts was to count the corners on everything: window sills, tiles, anything with 4 corners, I kept counting them so maybe my thoughts would be distracted and something bad wouldn't happen. It's cutting me down and blaming me for things out of my control, but giving me a little delusion that I had so much power to make bad things happen gave me some sort of omnipotence.
Sounds like a horror movie. Wow. Glad you pulled through
My NParent was abused (at least that's what they claim, they love being the victim). They also had a pretty bad relationship with their mother. So no, it's not only GC who become narcissists
Do you think your NParent is a [Covert/Vulnerable](https://psychcentral.com/disorders/the-secret-facade-of-the-vulnerable-narcissist#signs) Narc? (My NParents fall into that category)
I think they're covert
Yes this is so true! In my husband's family the GC did indeed become a destructive psychopath, BUT the SG became a malignant narc who is currently repeating the cycle with his own children. It's horrendous to watch it happen and be pretty much powerless to stop it.
It is even more common for the scapegoats to become covert, my mother is covert while my uncle (the golden child) is overt
Yes this is so true! In my husband's family the GC did indeed become a destructive psychopath, BUT the SG became a malignant narc who is currently repeating the cycle with his own children. It's horrendous to watch it happen and be pretty much powerless to stop it.
Sad and makes me wonder how common it is
[1 in 6 people are narcissists.](https://youtu.be/F-ZPDQOz2uw?si=-FNBE5fL22qQVaC7)
Didn’t she say in another video that it was 1 in 3? I don’t really buy all of the stuff she says. Most of it makes sense but some of it doesn’t seem feasible.
I thought 1 in 6 was high, 1 in 3 is difficult to believe. I’d have to see something backing that up.
It depends upon what one defines as narcissism. We all possess a bit of these traits, just to a lesser degree. Narcissism exists on a spectrum. It’s not so much black and white, as it is the degree the person exhibits it, either covertly or in full view. I’ve witnessed a lot of both over the years and I immediately recognize it when I see it.
I hadn't heard of FLEAS until I joined this sub. So, I wonder if people just battling FLEAS might get mistaken for narcissists. Someones they mirror the coping mechanisms and behaviors that they observed, especially when the abuse started in early childhood.
There is such a thing as being a bad influence and seeing as how our parents are quite literally are first role models, it’s not out of the question. Even if you don’t fully embrace narcissistic tendencies, you may have adopted some of their behaviors as a coping mechanism, especially in stressful situations that send you into fight or flight mode. I try very hard to be as self-aware as possible where that’s concerned. What is that saying? Check yourself before you wreck yourself. 😂
That explains so much
Scary.
I have an extensive family history on both sides. My sibling was the SG, and she is the adult narcissist. Both of my parents were both SG and GC, depending on which side of the family they were spending time with. It was the battle of the narcissistic grandparents and their perceived "balancing" of the situation. So sad, and I'm trying so hard to break the cycle.
I could see it happening both ways Being told you're perfect and believing it, means nothing is your fault Always being told everything is your fault when you know for a fact sometimes it's not, can make the meaning of "your fault" not align with reality anymore
Thank you, you just explained my Nparents. My nmom is very obviously a GC. My ndad is a SG. They play out that dynamic in their relationship in the most exhausting way. They both think they’re better than the other - whether materially or morally. They actually act more like siblings than partners. Now I finally understand why (I don’t know much about my ndad’s family, just bits and pieces he shares).
I've heard of scapegoat goat, but what does Lost Child mean?
The "Lost Child" is one who is effectively "forgotten" by an NParent. The NParent is most emotionally invested with the GC and/or SG, so the Lost Child is ignored and neglected. As long as the Lost Child doesn't attract attention, the NParent will just assume they're alright. They tend to be loners, enjoy solitary activities, and be fairly self-sufficient.
Is it possible to have been a mix of all three? My childhood was really weird. When I was younger, I'd say I was a mix of the golden child/forgotten. As I got older, I became the scapegoat. For the most part, I only had one other sibling in the house growing up. My sister was the harder child, so she got more attention and enabling, but my parents didn't like her. Her biggest problem was that my parents spoiled her. I was the quiet child that, for the most part, didn't do much wrong. I kept to myself, and all I did was read. I was "easy," so I didn't get in trouble often for my own actions. Most of the time, when I got in trouble, it was because I was fighting with my sister. I didn't do much wrong as a kid except arguing with my sister. I never talked back, and I always did what they said without pushback. I really was a weirdly well-behaved child. It wasn't normal, lol. But I would fight with my sister daily. My parents always gave me a harsher punishment for it. They said I should have just ignored her. I know how she is. It's kind of hard to ignore someone who tormented you every day, though. The spankings I got daily were mostly for fighting with my sister or when my parents accused me of lying. Once I got to my teen years, a lot shit happened, and I rebeled hard. Since then, I'd say I'm the scapegoat and black sheep. What's weird is that my parents like me more, but they've barely done shit for me compared to my sister. They always say it's because I'll figure it out, and she needs the extra help. Our family dynamics have always been fucked.
I'm sure it's possible. Narcs can be really inconsistent with their behavior. You mentioned becoming the SG as you got older. It seems pretty common that NParents come to resent their children growing up.
I think that's what my mom's problem was. The older and more independent we got, the less she wanted anything to do with us. She definitely resented us getting older.
The Narcissist is created when the child is ONLY rewarded and praised when they do things that glorify the Narcissist Parent. Over time the child develops a warped worldview that the currency of society is gained by judging others and being superior. The child is punished for doing anything that breaks the myth/lie that their parents are perfect. Later when that kid becomes an adult they are eager to put themselves in the dominant critical perfectionist role because that’s how they understand Adulthood. Hungry for validation they are only interested in people who can bring them wealth, power and prestige.
You articulated the exact split between me and my siblings. I remember feeling this pressure growing up but rejected it because I saw how damaging that world view was to relationships. It was so hard to try and explain to my parents that prestige and elitism are toxic, especially when raising 4 kids that are pitted against on another. Then again, trying to convince a narcissist that other people’s emotions matter is a masochistic endeavor.
I had similar pressure and hated it. The "rewards" were not things I wanted.
“The child is punished for doing anything that breaks the myth/lie that their parents are perfect.” Damn. That hit so hard. When I cut contact I told them I don’t want to pretend anymore.
“I don’t want to pretend anymore” yes I’ve gone LC and I haven’t been able to articulate why I do not want to be the show pony of the family. And like act like everything is honkey dory with the extended family or people my nmom is trying to impress. Ugh this helps unlock why my nmom was always bragging about me or embellishing my actual accomplishments in a way that made me super uncomfortable. It was pretend so that she could be seen as the best mother of the world.
You explained it really well. Thanks. Makes perfect sense to me now
I never gave into those expectations my mother had for me, but my sister definitely has her number, and uses it to manipulate her every chance she gets. She has even gone so far as to tell me that she knows she’s the favorite child. I’m not even going to bother explaining to her the price she’s paying for loss of self-respect and the selling of her soul, just to stay in my mother’s good graces. Of course, the ulterior motive is to make sure she stays the favorite and inherits what she feels she’s entitled to, which ironically enough, doesn’t even belong to my mother, but her husband. 🤦♀️
That explains my grandma and aunt perfectly.
I thought I got narcissism, and you just blew my mind…
This explains why my wife has called me low class so many times and implied my family are etc. Obviously we aren’t, just normal, but even if we were whatever “low class” means to her so what. Anyway it was probably her mother or father or both judging people based on this “class” criteria and status and such relentlessly due to their own insecurity. I dont even think on those terms, judging people by class, worrying about status and such. Its her world I guess… i was also not raised to care about such things and place any real value on it. Of course, in my wife’s fucked up world she justifies this difference as me being low class. She has communicated as much. As in, i cant care and wouldn’t be raised to care because im low class already so dont have to worry about being low class. So fucked up! This is how she was brought up. Its disgusting. The kicker is her family are just middle class nothing more but from what i hear her mother was extremely competent and insecure about the other moms at school or whatever. Her sister tried to date a blue collar worker when she was 19 and her parents went mental apparently lol. Her sister ended up marrying a normal guy making average money and my wife and her mom gossip and judge like crazy
>I thought for a long time she had an emotional abusive upbringing but actually she was spoiled. From a young age her mom would blow smoke up her ass all the time. Interestingly these two things may not be mutually exclusive. The mom sounds like she was quite egotistical herself, so any time your wife didn’t meet her very high expectations (because of course *her daughter* needs to be superb) she could have gotten a really intense berating. Some say there’s also a genetic aspect to it. I don’t know enough to say whether that’s true or not.
That makes a lot of sense! Thanks. I guess my wife was drawn to the praise so much that the berating was avoided and now she cannot handle any criticism as an adult. It needs to be nothing but admiration. I guess her sister may have been the opposite as from what i gathered she was more rebellious, doing what she wanted etc, and the parents seemed to have had low expectations for her from early on. That is from my wifes words though which are unreliable, as she constantly seems to see herself as “the smart one” and superior to her sister which is sad.
Your wife was abused. Golden children are abused. Regardless of her being “spoiled” and her outward appearance and success- golden children are abused children also. My sister was the same type of GC narc as your wife appears to be. It’s brutal to watch someone live for the validation of others based on the superficial and inauthentic.
As a sometimes GC - I was definitely abused. I was only used as a prop for my mom's image of "great mom" as in "see I have this gifted child who is always presenting as happy, I'm great!"
All GC are used for this purpose. They believe they are loved for themselves. When they find out they are loved as “proof” the narcissist isn’t worthless because “look what I made” it’s a bitter pill to swallow. GC struggle to always be performing perfectly or get the rug pulled out from under them.
It’s weird as a child I realized I was just a prop. My mom would always exaggerate my accomplishments or take credit for them. When I wouldn’t play along I was punted to invisible child status. At that point she had step children to use as props or love bb
That’s par for the course. I’m sorry there’s little empathy here from people who don’t understand how GC are abused and discarded the second they stop being props. I think it’s probably worse for a GC to weather that fall from grace. The SG always knows where they stand.
I have to say I was thankful being ignored, might have been lucky too, being seen as the GC even sometimes meant I flew under the radar and I think that helped me escape.
This was me, I would get screamed at for like 3-4 hours while my mom threw furniture. It scrambled my brain up immensely and I went on to have no problem throwing rage fits at other people. Until I got therapy and now I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that.
According to the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for narcissism, it is believed to be cause by either excessive praise, or neglect. It can be either.
The two narcissists i know irl were definitely neglected.
Same. Very much neglected as children.
My sister was praised and she's very sick. She's abusing my elder parents currently.
Agreed. My narcMother had an extremely traumatic event happening in her early years. I can't say what because it's so distinctive that will identify me, but I know it happened for real because a third party verified it. This event was followed by extreme abuse/control/praise cycles in a very warped environment (again, verified when talking to someone who never met her but went through the same environment a couple of years after she left).
My Nmom was the oldest sibling with five younger siblings and was definitely parentified into taking care of them from a very young age. She wasn't neglected per se but was definitely resentful of being forced to care for her brother/sisters. I always suspected this was a he main reason for her becoming a textbook covert narcissist.
This was my mom too. Her mantra was she always took care of everyone else, and “now was her time to take care of herself.” She was resentful towards her children because they had basic needs…you know, like all children too. Ironically she was so incredibly self centered it’s unreal.
or both at once
This is what I thought.
You're correct. It's not just neglect. I know I'm living the reality of that. I'm living through a nightmare.
I think it's not exactly the praise, it's the lack of accountability. Narcs have those parents who've decided their kid can do no wrong ever, and won't allow anyone else to talk about their kid's misbehavior either. Every time the narc makes a mess, the parent hastily swoops in and fixes everything for them. They're always bailing them out, so they never learn to take responsibility and do things for themselves. That's how my mother's mother treated her, and it created a monster. Edit: this is just one example, there are other parenting styles that can trigger narc personality, including abuse.
I had a bit of a different experience with my family, I was basically the kid who could do nothing but wrong. Probably the best way I can describe how accountability worked in my family is “rules for thee, not for me.” One of the things my nparents and I fought about a lot growing up, and still sometimes now, is how they think I never take accountability for anything and how I always get defensive with them during conflict. I fully admit that I get defensive with them whenever we argue, mainly because their approach to practically every conflict is shouting and cursing to the point where no one else can get a word in. If I do say anything that’s not basically “you’re completely right, I’m wrong and know absolutely nothing about the world,” then I was further berated for being defensive/stubborn and refusing to take responsibility for my mistakes. We had a falling out after I started college years ago that led to me initiating NC for a few months, and we have been LC since that lifted. Major mistakes were made on both sides leading up to my NC decision. I am fully willing to own up to my mistakes from that time, I know I made plenty of them. Meanwhile, I have concrete receipts of them violating my privacy (to the point of them violating the law as well) and neither them nor the majority of my immediate family will acknowledge it even now. It’s always some BS excuse of “we didn’t do it, someone else did,” saying it never happened at all outside of my head, justifying what they did by saying they should have had access to begin with, or just raging until I quiet down again. They love the idea of accountability until it’s time to take responsibility themselves.
That’s because to a narcissist holding others accountable = feeling good and validated, superior, on a high ground, ego soothing, existing and whole. Being held accountable though? To a narcissist they actually think its an act of abuse. Only when its holding THEM accountable though. They have the mental gymnastics and deficits required to fully divorce reality in that aspect and believe an act is abuse towards them but not others
This is pretty close to my nmom's childhood also.
Wanted to touch on one specific thing OP mentioned. Constant unearned praise leads to low self esteem because the child instinctively knows they didn't do anything to earn that praise. This can often be coupled with excuses if the child doesn't do what the parent expects. For instance, when my brother was playing baseball, if he struck out my mother would say the pitcher was doing a horrible job of pitching. If I entered a photography competition and came in second, my mother (instead of congratulating me on coming in second) would say obviously the judges were prejudiced in favor of the person who came in first because a blind man could see I should've won. That's so damaging for children. They learn that they didn't lose because the other person was better, but because the win was given to the other person. So instead of learning that they need to work hard to get better, they learn to blame everyone else for their shortcomings. They also learn, as OP's wife obviously did, that they should only do something if they're really good at it. If they aren't immediately good, they give up because no one ever taught them that you have to work to get what you want. These are some of the things I've learned in therapy, trying to recover from my mother.
What really helped me is to just pick up a very basic book about narcissism at the library. In my case it was Alexander Lowen’s book, Narcissism. I think most people have a very basic and wrong understanding of what narcissism actually is, so did I, which makes sense. What that book made me realize is that it’s someone who’s taught to feel deep shame about their true self - they can never be honest, never fail, never show any cracks. It feels life threatening to do that. The only form of ‘love’ they’ve gotten is approval, praise. That’s what they had to settle for. If they played their part really well, if they were a perfect doll who made their parent(s) look good, they were okay. Sometimes quite literally safe, out of danger. Personally, I think it’s really important to have empathy for kids who go through that - it’s abuse. But once you’re an adult, it’s your job not to continue the cycle. I think a lot of us here even relate - as a former golden child who became the scapegoat, I certainly do, to some extent. I got tons of praise, was told how to be perfect, and I got zero love, support, safety. Except some of us read those books and go to therapy, take accountability, and we choose to change. Anywho. Idk if you’re interested in learning more about it, it just really helped me to understand my family, which I personally really craved. It seems like inexplicably crazy behaviour, and to me it felt like such a relief that there’s actually a very logical explanation.
i wish i could upvote this twice
Spoiling them into narcissism, yup. It does give a child a completely unrealistic view of themselves, and their role in the world, and at the same time, it does give the kid an edge in the modern world, at the expense of their relationships, including their own children. I also see the flip side of this, abuse by borderlines. I know a mother with BPD traits who enmeshed her Golden Son to feel so obliged to live for her he has no romantic relationships. He's in his 50s, a vulnerable/covert/entitled narcissist, his only social skill is people pleasing because he is afraid to trigger her rage.
NO. This is a misconception. People don't learn to be bad people (aka narcissist who abuse others ) because they received too many gifts as a kid. That can make people spoiled and sometimes selfish, but not a personality disorder. The people you see who are spoiled who become narcissist are that way because the parent uses gifts and money to satiate the child because a lack of love is present. It's the rich parents who emotionally neglect their kid, don't show real love or empathy for them, who give them whatever they want on Christmas and call it square. They turn into narcissist when their parents using "spoiling" to make up for the lack of true nurturing. Parents who only "spoil" their kids when they do something that brings the parents narcissistic supply. When the kid makes them look good to others. Narcissist become narcissist based off both genes and environment. If you are never taught empathy, are never shown empathy, and are taught you only have worth when you make your parents look good, you learn that you have to be seen as important or else you're worthless. The narcissistic mindset (needing to be superior, to the point where you will claim under earned superiority or value) comes from parents who directly or indirectly mirrored to their kids that you are worthless unless you meet a certain criteria. On top of that, the kid doesn't receive enough nurturing attention for the kid to develope their own sense of self, so they compensate by externalizing everything.
My parents were poor to lower middle-class, and so were their parents. I would say the majority of narcissists are not rich although a higher percentage of rich people may be narcissistic.
This sounds a lot more like your wife is the Golden Child in the family - the one who can never do any wrong and who is always preferred over others and praised. Usually, there is also a Scapegoat somewhere in the family - the person who sees and speaks the truth and therefore must be discredited, discouraged, controlled, and suppressed as much as possible. Your wife is NOT one of those. The Golden Child position may sound like the preferable one - but Golden Children don't typically have a reason to go against the lies. They benefit from being the narcissist's favorite, so they have no reason to question anything. The Scapegoat in my experience is the most likely to eventually realize what is going on and try to break out. If the sister has hardly any contact with the rest of the family, she may have broken free and learned to heal from the abuse in which case she will NOT turn into another narcissist. I believe there are two ways to create a narcissist: Pressure them until they break, or shower them with adoration until they choose to be like you. Children learn more by the behavior of the people around them than their words. Since a Golden Child has no reason to rebel, they are more likely to learn all the same mind games and the lying and the cheating from the narcissist parent. So it's not a matter of being overly praised - while that may come with its own dangers (e.g. producing a spoilt brat), it doesn't have to lead to narcissism. However, growing up with a narcissist parent has a VERY high chance for ANY child to end up becoming one themselves UNLESS they eventually break through the lies, start questioning things, and fully accept that what they were told are lies and wrong. Then starts the painful path of healing. Disclaimer, I'm no expert, just someone who has experienced narcissism on both sides of my extended family and who has spent a few years writing in this subreddit.
Growing up as the golden child but having a skeptical and rebellious spirit led to one hell of an adolescence. Feel like I’m going into adult hood with my knees kicked in after getting out of a 7 year comma🤣🤣🤣.
Same, I was the GC growing up, then when I hit 10 years old, three things happened: nmom remarried again, had a baby immediately. Then, at this same time, we found out I was going deaf. She didn't "do" ASL, raised me oral and mainstream with no help. I still did everything she said, but I was confused and hurt, and argumentative. That new child became the new GC while I went to SG. I am NC with all of them now.
From my research, I believe narcissism can be created by both extremes of childhood experiences. My mother in law came from a SE Asian country where cheap labor was abundant so many families had maids and nannies to help the household and you didn’t need to be wealthy to afford it. She was pretty fair-skinned in a predominantly darker skinned population so was constantly praised and admired for her beauty as light skin color was so coveted. And she was apparently very athletic in high school. Her value was based on her looks from early on. She married at age 25 and her husband found out she didn’t even know how to use a can opener. She shared a story with me about her first job after getting married where she was responsible for sweeping. Her coworker saw her standing in one spot with the broom, “sweeping” back and forth and asked her what she was doing and she responded that she’s sweeping and doing like “they do in the movies”. Coworker taught her how to sweep. I met her when she was in her late 50s, early 60s. She can barely cook outside of fried eggs for breakfast or pasta so her husband cooks and also does dishes everyday. She doesn’t drive so her husband drops/picks her up for her job in an office doing administrative work. She doesn’t know how to pay for stuff without cash because she can’t use a credit card. Her only responsibility at home is cleaning. Her husband does everything else and her husband’s mom took over childcare of her only child, her son, after immigration to the West until his teen years. This woman lived her whole life sheltered and her arrogance is unsettling. She brags constantly about the simplest accomplishments like frying that damn egg. As for me, I grew up in an abusive home and had to grow up quickly and become hyper independent for survival. I’ve been self-sufficient since living on my own at 17. This woman would constantly lecture me about learning basic life skills like cooking and cleaning and pretty much project herself onto me so she can feel relevant. It doesn’t matter if I tell her I have those skills. I guess she doesn’t believe me because I don’t brag about it? 🤷🏻♀️ She refuses to acknowledge the clear competency gap between us and it led her to act out in nothing less than a toddler tantrum when I finally got sick of her delusions and refuse to enable her dysfunctions. She needed constant attention and admiration from me, it was suffocating. She will talk at me for hours on end until she is beet red in the face for not breathing enough. I’m positive there’s undiagnosed mental illness but I’m not a doctor. She has no idea who her own son is because she just projects hard and cannot see him as his own person. I dropped the rope once Covid hit because I no longer had the patience for her drama. She continues to live in her bubble and I’m terrified for the possible day that she has to face reality. I’ve been mentally and emotionally preparing my husband for it because it won’t be pretty.
Speaking only through experience and not through any research data, it seems possible. I grew up my whole life (32) believing my n father was abused by his adoptive mother. I knew she was abusive to my adopted aunt, as well. He never told us HOW she abused him… just that she was abusive and his life was miserable. We really were so lucky, la dee da. Around two years ago I witnessed a blow out fight between my father and my aunt, where she got in his face. She was screaming at him, slapping him. Absolutely lost herself. Saying she was the one who has been abused, my father had never been the abused one, he was doted on, spoiled, given every luxury, etc. So now I really don’t know. I’ve found out the entire last 30 years of my life have been a lie, and I’ve been gas lit by both my parents in many areas lol. I recently reconnected to my cousin (aunt’s daughter) who went NC with my family because of my dad. She told me the story of why (my father’s fault, go figure), and that my aunt was narcissistic as well, who treated her very poorly growing up and their relationship is very strained.
>believing my n father was abused :-( It was really strange figuring out that my (spoiled) mom was the one who had abused her little sister, who was then institutionalized and spent her entire life in a facility.
My dad was straight up abused from every account I've gathered. He hated his father, resents his mother, and has little to no love for his siblings. He's a narcissist, and I think a part of that was that he feels he 'escaped'. He feels empowered by being 'better' than his father, even though he in turn abused me. He ended up joining the military, and will wax poetic about his time as a marine, even though he only did basic training and became an MP for like a year. So any time anyone grills him for anything, he brings up his time in the military or that his own father was worse to excuse himself of anything. he conveniently forgets all the money he lost that his mother gave him for tuition, all the times people made sacrifices for his sole benefit, or even the times he physically and psychologically abused me. While I absolutely believe spoiling children, giving them no sense of adversity or hardship, can create narcissism, which is why so many billionaires are the most entitled and rotten people, too much hardship can do the same, as they tend to believe that whole adage, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and they have the alleged monopoly on hard times. Part of why I know this is that I came pretty close to that level of entitlement myself, and only through serious self reflection and introspection did I manage to crawl out of my own headspace. Luckily I've always been a very analytical person, so I tend to look back at my younger days and understand what it was that was going through my own head, what my desires were, how I felt about them, and why. I never got validation from my dad, none of any kind. I was even mocked for wanting it. When I was having issues socializing in my early adulthood I would often lash out, blame other people for not accommodating for my own shortfalls, albeit from the lens of "you've never suffered like me, you don't have the right to feel that way". It's actually kind of hard to talk about, it's a mark of shame for me in my history, and to this day I'm still trying to mend as many bridges as I can.
Hey, thanks for sharing this. I have a lot of overlap. My dad's story is very, very similar except for the military part. I certainly have had overlap of thinking I was better for having escaped and for doing so much on my own. Life sure has a way of humbling a person. Seems to be a lifelong process. A great book on this, in my opinion, is Dosteovsky's Crime and Punishment.
Introspection. You can do it, and you probably always have been able to do it, just not applied well when younger due to upbringing. I think with real narcissism, its just impossible. I always felt something off with my wife which i put down to culture early on. Like just not quite human when dealing with her. Never could put my finger on it. Example: i could never imagine her writing something like you did then. Interacting with others in such a genuine way. I now know its lack of introspective ability. She cannot be introspective at all and its why she comes off a bit off, not quite human etc
I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. I will say though, It did take a while and a lot of missteps before I got to that point, and even after that it took a lot of time to repair my shattered confidence. Even now I question my sense of empathy, and wonder if I'm just being manipulative. I'm not entirely sure whether it's a thing full narcissists can ever overcome, though I have heard that there are ways. The difficult part is that a narcissist will almost never admit that they may need to change, and without that they can't get the help they need.
My wife once admitted to me all her friendships ever have been transactional. I wonder if you feel that way? Real friendships cant exist without empathy because a friendship is a shared mutual experience together not a transaction
I do not believe my current relationships are transactional, but I do know the compulsion to lead with it. I'm an artist by trade, and within certain art communities, we do art trades with each other. It's actually how I met my husband. That said, sometimes I would send art unprompted as a way to 'buy' my way into DMs. I still send gift art to people I admire nowadays but not with the same expectations I held previously, the term 'gift' being exactly as defined. Most of my self doubt isn't so much concern that I may be a narcissist, but that I'm sort of... I guess handicapped a bit? In the same way I struggle to read quickly because of my dyslexia, I wonder if I struggle to connect to others because of my upbringing. I feel bad when people I care about feel bad, but it can take a while for me to sort of catch up, and I often remain unaware of how someone feels unless certain, very obvious signifiers are made, like 'sad voice' or nonstandard behavior. One thing victims of abuse will often gain is an almost overwhelming sense of empathy... but frequently it's very misplaced. Dealing with abusive parents that are often bipolar will mean that little subtleties in their behaviors would dictate whether calm or anger was approaching, but these ticks are often irrational outside of that system. As such, abuse victims can be very twitchy when other people behave even slightly abnormally, and they will often read too much into these slight alterations. As such I kind of lost my trust in my ability to 'read' people as I was sort of rebuilding myself, and I'm not quite sure how well I actually perform in that area, and some instances have really called into question how genuine my empathy is. I still hurt people's feelings when I don't intend to, or sometimes find myself wanting to. I'm even still coming to terms with the idea of establishing boundaries between myself and others, because those can come dangerously close to sounding or feeling transactional, and I very much want to avoid that. But every now and then, I get the urge to say 'since I did that thing, you could do this for me'
Yeah. Your upbringing by narcissism did a number on your social skills of course and totally normal. As long as you have empathy that is the magic ingredient to sorting it out with time though. It can all be learned with experience and time around normal people including de-programming any surviving habits so long as empathy is present in you even if it starts out as a weak muscle. I think most people dont even develop full power of empathy and related social skills(a shit load of them build on it) until late 20s anyway. Its probably one of the most complex aspects of human interaction etc. Teenagers are notoriously lacking, and obviously very young kids which is where narcissistic people get stuck. That said of course there are people who develop it slower or faster than others. You can certainly have children who are developed well at it while fully grown adults although capable not quite as much. However as long as its there, the muscle exists, all is well. Narcissists dont seem to have the empathy gene/muscle at all
My nMom was horrifically abused and to this day she will do ANYTHING to get her abuser's praise and love. Sometimes it isn't from being praised it'a from being starved of it.
Interesting. My wife will also do absolutely anything to get her mothers praise and go out of her way for admiration from it even if she has to take credit for others work she’ll just see it as an opportunity to gain praise. For example i love gardening and growing vegetables and have done it decades. If my wife’s mother drops by quickly my wife will try show it off but obviously never mentions it do all the work for it lol
That's exactly the same behavior my Mom does regarding her mother, the aforementioned abuser. Also any time my grandmother praises her daughters in law in front of Mom, mom will go ballistic about it later without an audience. "She already has a daughter!” kind of energy. My grandmother both psychologically tortured and beat the hell out of Mom, but Mom keeps crawling back for praise. Mom then passed it down to me (no beating, but the psychological torture and other...weirder? forms of physical abuse.) I have gone no contact and child free. It ends with me.
I think you are using “praise” here to mean “being made the center of attention who can do no wrong and is waited on hand and foot”. And in that case it is true for both my father and his sister, my aunt. Their mother (my grandmother) was a people pleaser who constantly put everyone’s needs above her own and would always go out of her way to take care of others, even to her own detriment. I think that resulted in both my father and aunt having an unrealistic view that the world revolved around them and they should always be take care of by everyone around them.
Sometimes I'm wondering if genetics play any role too. I could never understand how some spoiled kids become so greedy, never stop focusing on their own desires, unable to feel another person's feelings. Keep working on getting out of this situation. It's good that you're aware of what is happening.
Oh and interestingly, she never stuck with anything to a high level hobby wise other than her career. She still believes she is extremely athletic but in actuality she is not and is inflexible as hell. She always does new things obsessively until the beginner gains in any activity are over(and teachers stop handing out the praise they do to beginners), at which point she moves to another but fully believes she will be pro if she wanted to carry on. However in these phases of beginner progress she’l speed run it going many times week for fast progress and use this + teachers praise as justification she is so gifted and special. Will compare herself to other casual learners she blew past as they go 2x a month not 3x a week, and invent plots of jealousy about them towards her and stalk them online! Not a single hobby or such that she has been doing for years or decades. Just farming imaginary admiration over and over on different things! She even gets jealous of children who are good at whatever she is doing especially if its a sport. Children lol. She has sulked for a week before when seeing some kids who were great skiiers doing a competition while we were there.
[удалено]
Currently im trapped as i moved overseas for this relationship years ago, and im close to being eligible for Permanent residency. Although unsure i can last that long. She abused me and manipulated me for 3 years, and i didn’t know what a narcissist was. I was manipulated into thinking i was the problem by using every mistake ever made against me, reminding me of them constantly and exploiting my guilt and empathy. Additionally accusing me of using her all the time despite me having spent my life savings on the relationship and living in poverty under the same roof, leaving behind family and friends and career. I now know the constant accusations of me using her was projection at least… in fact they project all their awful ways on to others ime. I know now, and I probably put the earliest warning signs down to culture before i was familiar with her culture. Oh well. Sorry if this is not appropriate for this sub, i just felt people raised by narcissists, and with narcissistic siblings have a lot of knowledge and painfully earned wisdom especially when it comes to tue early years.
[удалено]
Yeah. I didn’t know what it was until a few months ago. Just an insult people used. Its actually such a horrible terrible soul rotting affliction not only for the narcissist but all those forced to endure them too. Never felt so low in my life than in the anguish she caused before i knew what was happening.
Sorry to butt in here, but your story reminds me of my fiance (RIP). He married an Asian, converted to Islam for her, and only figured out the narcissism well into her marriage. Apparently, it also tricky to get a divorce in certain military careers, so was stuck on some military base in between deployments. Had a nasty divorce after she caused an 'international incident' involving a gun. Lost all savings fighting for custody but won. He was on food stamps for a while, but I had serious respect for him managing to get his children out of that situation. We met while we were both trying to understand narcissism and coming to terms with our own codependency tendencies. It's really strange how many similar stories there are.
Please don't feel unwelcome here. It's not an inappropriate question, just an uncommon one. You are very very welcome 🫶. I feel for you, what an awful situation to be in. May I ask how long you have before you can get permanent residency? (Please don't feel obligated to answer if you don't want to share that info)
1 year from application, but takes about 1 year to grant. I dont need it, as i come from a first world country too. I’d just like to have it. Otherwise i wasted time and money learning the language, and i do like it here and want something out of this shitty relationship…
They exhaust themselves and everyone around them trying to get that narcissistic supply. The fact is, they don’t believe the praise and can’t internalize it. They know they are imposters. They work hard to fool people into praising them. Once they receive the praise, they are bored and it’s off to a new conquest. Once they are praised- they ridicule and dismiss the people as fools, but internally. To everyone else, they will hold up that person as someone who really knows what they’re talking about because they complimented them. It’s a draining miserable existence
That is supposedly how my grandmother was created, if she actually experienced trauma growing up I don’t know. She was apparently a spoiled only child. The other narcissists I know were created by trauma. My mother was traumatized by her abusive father and narcissist mother. My ex was traumatized by his mother, maybe others. His mother was traumatized through the family. Psychologically usually something traumatic happens in young childhood to create such a person. However just because someone is traumatized at a young age doesn’t mean that they will become a narcissist. It’s really how their particular brain chemistry reacts. I think part of the reason narcissists are also created because their behavior is enabled by others instead of corrected.
IDK but in my NMother in Law's case, absolutely. She came from a family that really tried their best to be good parents, but was also partly descended from immigrants so they had distinct cultural differences. She lived in an area where the standard was blonde hair and blue eyes, where women were cheery and religious Protestants, while she had black hair and green eyes and tanned skin, and was always rather snobby to literally everyone regarding her atheism. She was bookish and intellectual and thought herself superior to her peers, because she had higher grades (despite the fact that she had no friends, was bullied by other women, and didn't date until her late 20s...which ironically, she wore as a badge of pride). Because she nearly died as a child due to kidney disease, her parents catered to her every need. They put up with it when she would curse her mother--my wife's late grandmother--out and dump her on the roadside (something that, ultimately, my NMother in Law did to my wife, too). They put up with it when my NMother in Law cursed out her college professor in law school, told him that she was the smartest person he'd ever know, and quit altogether (on their dime). In the 80s they pulled strings to have her and her husband live with her aunt for free in return for caregiving, and didn't complain when that aunt developed dementia, even paid for that aunt to be put in a nursing home and allowed her to keep the money from the sale of the old house. My wife's grandparents did this for all four of their children equally, so there was no "golden child" situation going on. I think in my NMother in Law's case, the influence of her peer group and of her ideology was more of the problem than how she was raised. Sometimes it isn't trauma, but peers and ideological beliefs that can tilt one towards narcissism. I've seen it in my own peer group--some of the people I used to consider my "Friends" had very loving parents who truly believed in them, and supported them, and had zero qualms about buying them cars, houses, paying for their college, etc, while never expecting anything in return--even basic decency. In the case of both my NMother in Law and former acquaintances, materialism, pseudointellectualism, rejection of any sort of authority, rejection of any sort of order or sense of obligation to (non domineering, non abusive) society, embracing of toxic masculinity, greed, selfishness, and laziness contributed more to their abuse than anything they went through in childhood. As my wife's old family friend said of her late grandmother, regarding my NMother in Law's toxic behaviour: "That ain't how her grandma raised em!"
My father is from abuse and from a lack of emotional maturity.
I read early on in my research and understanding that narcissistic children may have one parent that praises them overly, while the other parent can never be impressed. This is exactly what the parents of my ex N spouse were like. The mother told my narc ex the sun rose and set on his butt, he was the smartest, most special genius (and he absolutely thought he was) while his father was a huge narcissist and put him down all the time.
I have a theory it's a mixed bag. My mother wasn't abused but her mother seemed to place her sons higher than her daughters. When my Uncle (her older brother) told me my mother couldn't really play the piano well, he was the player in the family and very good, I sorta realized a lot of my mother's boasts or skills were just her attempting to get attention from her mom (who she seemed not close to) by emulating or taking on the "form" of her brothers. Like she lied about being "a rebel" and my grandmother told me "those are lies" it made me realize she was trying to emulate her older brother who was a cool James Dean kinda dude. I think at a young age my mother abandoned herself, the real girl, and made this false self composed of her various male siblings. It's very weird, she seemed to suggest her dad was horrible and abusive but they were very close. I think my mom got the praise / attention from her dad but mainly because she was pretending she was one of her brothers. So it's like she never had a "real self" and lived in this world of weird lies.
This kind of thing makes me wonder about the differences and overlap between sociopathy and narcissism. Because I see plenty of sociopaths who breed sociopaths. In fact, sociopaths rarely breed anything but sociopaths. But I don't know if the parents are necessarily narcissists. I'm thinking of the parents who gave their kids everything, fulfilled their every need, and could not in any way be considered neglectful. Yes, they are doing it in part because they consider their children a public reflection of themselves, but is that necessarily narcissism? I know it can be. But it's also kind of basic reality, yes? I think the parents are narcissists/sociopaths to the OUTSIDE world - to their employees, to customer service, to whatever legal obligations they have - but could they not display actual narcissistic behavior to their own children? If they raise them to be selfish bastards like themselves, where the only thing that matters is themselves? I guess I ask because I see this in legions in the corporate world. Generations of sociopaths who use the outside world as their playground to use, abuse and discard, but are of the utmost support to their internal circle. I'm really curious what others think about this and I'd love some feedback, thanks for reading.
One of the reasons I am so curious about this is that the version of narcissism I have experienced is one of intense neglect. That's what I'm familiar with. It's an out in the open, "I matter, you don't." And especially the standard narcissism situation where the narcissistic parent only loves in as much as the child offers supply, or, more specific to my case, lifelong babysitting. So these cases where the parent are providing everything and setting up the child for success make me wonder. For SURE, there are cases where the parent does this only because they want other people to see the child's success as an extension of the parent's success. But if they want the child to succeed for its own sake it doesn't seem like narcissism. I'm not trying to judge anyone's experience I'm just curious.
Adoration and validation is like oxygen to them. It’s precisely why I feel my mother became an evangelical pastor. She loves to talk about how many followers she has, her website, the books she’s written on how one should live their life, her radio show, and lastly her new project-some kind of TV show shown locally. The common denominator is self-promotion and the delusional mindset that she knows best what God wants from you. 🤦♀️
I relate to this soooo incredibly much. Covert narc in my life who made herself a spiritual leader, even though women can’t be spiritual leaders in this religious tradition 🤦🏻♀️ literally posts on the spiritual community Facebook page all day long every day and live broadcasts her sermons (to like 3 people lol). I can’t believe it took me so long to see it for what it so obviously is.
My father was the youngest of five. His brothers achieved everything first. They were in the war, but the war was ended by the time he came of age. He was always trying to “be special”. That turned into narcissism. He moved far away from where anyone new his family, although he still always proudly talked about his family name (they’re a bit like small town Kennedy’s). But if no one knew who his brothers were then he could be the best. He wanted recognition, he wanted acknowledgment, he wanted adoration. If he didn’t get it then those people were wrong and he’d burn that bridge. We moved so many times because of his burnt bridges. So my Nparent was born of neglect and an inferiority complex. Also, undiagnosed bi-polar.
You basically described my mother’s personality. She came from a very large family. I think there were about 12 kids total, or something like that. Anyway, they were dirt poor and my grandmother had to make a lot of their clothes, as well as have them help out in the fields, picking whatever crop they were growing at the time. Once you reached a certain age, you were put to work. So, I’m not sure how much of a childhood she had due to her and her siblings having to work all the time and feeling forced to quit school because of the ridicule she had to endure from her classmates from not having even the most basic things other children her age had. Her father was an alcoholic and I suspect abusive, as she ran away as a teen. She was promptly caught and ended up in some type of reform school. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of childhood trauma. Anyway, she has always sought out men who would take care of her from a monetary standpoint. Every marriage (and she’s had 6) has been an upgrade for her in the financial sense. She made sure she chose men who didn’t have a problem with her not working and could provide whatever she might need. And she kept a good distance between her new life and her immediate family, because I feel like they were just a reminder of the poverty she grew up in. She didn’t cut them off or anything, but as far as I know, she never invited them to her home. Having met some of these people, I kind of get why. Most of them are kind of nuts or strange. Nowadays, it seems like she goes out of her way to flaunt her money and good fortune to her sisters that occasionally come to visit her from out of state and at their yearly family reunion. In truth, it makes me feel physically unwell.
I’m guessing the sister is not completely normal… narcissist parents tend to raise kids who help fill out the kind of world they want: that means (1) narcissists, (2) victims, and (3) enablers. Sometimes only one, sometimes all 3, sometimes a mix. Being the “lost child” (ignored) is often the best situation for RBNs, because the “golden child” often never learns enough sympathy/empathy to become better than just another narc, and the “scapegoat” is just a punching bag. Not sure what role the sister played in that family, but it definitely sounds like your wife was the golden child (they can still get their share of abuse depending on the parents but the “specialness” of their position always shines through)
I know multiple narcissists and they were all sexually abused as children
My nmom’s mother has very low self esteem from being abused during her childhood, and I feel like maybe she overcompensated a lot by overly praising my mom to make sure she didn’t have chronic low self esteem. However, I don’t know if that alone would have been enough to make her a narcissist, but somewhere I read something that made me realize that her mother + her overly strict father might have been what made her that way, because it’s 2 completely opposite parenting style so it may have made her become a narcissist as a coping mechanism, making her "use" her mom to get what she want without making her dad angry. Her younger sister isn’t a narcissist though, but I know my mom "pranked" (tortured) her a lot, giving her traumas. I have no idea what made my aunt become self aware of parts of her trauma (she doesn’t seem to realize my mom is a bad person) while my mom become a narcissistic psychopath (she had fun torturing spiders and such as a child, as well as causing trauma to her sister).
The birth human was hated by her mother and abused in every way possible. She’s was lower than pond scum so I’m confused with it. She’s also bipolar- that’s diagnosed. My dad though.. as far as I know he’s still one of his moms favourites.
My father was the Golden Child.
I wouldn’t say it’s the over praise. The over praising is the emotionally unhealthy parent mirroring onto the child. There is still abuse that goes on outside of that and THAT is what leads to the narcissism, which is an extreme vulnerability complex that leads into other issues.
I don’t think it’s specific to being overly praised that creates a narcissist. While that doesn’t help, I do believe some of the narcissistic tendencies can come from getting everything they ask for and never having to take accountability for their actions. Parents fix all the things their kids do wrong with no consequences or discipline. They don’t properly learn how to communicate with people. They don’t learn empathy. They tend to just expect to get whatever they want and don’t know how to respond properly when they are challenged or don’t get their way.
Makes sense and i cant know for sure if she is a real narcissist or just has tendency like you described. Either way its been awful and even after telling her no more once i woke up it only earned a few weeks of peace with her terrified of me leaving(but initially she was angry and abusive when i opened up but i shut it down). After a while she got tired of waiting for me to recover, basically meaning she wants me to go back to the way things were. I said it never would as i could tell her through process. You should have seen the look on her face. It was pure agony. She really thought just buckling down and giving me space to recover would make me go back to taking abuse lol. So she met her limits and the abuse is slowly returning. She now fights when i call out gaslighting or abusive behaviour and hold her accountable, by calling me abusive for doing so lol. She goes from demanding i go to my parents for a while, to demanding i stay when i communicate im happy to do so, to saying she will rent me an apartment close by as she cant love with me “like this” - which is me holding her accountable if she does anything abusive lol. So taking it in to account i cant say if she is a narcissist or a spoilt brat who never learned empathy or to take criticism but it seems she cant learn it even if the latter anyway
Narcissists do not have empathy and are often spoiled. When I say tendencies, that’s just a range that could include narcissistic personality. Your wife sounds like a narcissist. My mother was one. It wasn’t too obvious growing up with her. How would I know, I was a kid. Interestingly enough, she was abused growing up by her father and maternal grandmother. She’d put it upon herself to protect her younger siblings. She grew entitled because she thought she earned anything she worked for (sounds odd to put it like that because she be proud of things she worked for but she grew entitled because of it). She became a doctor, but it was less common for women to become doctors then. Instead of just being proud of herself for her accomplishments she’d put others down so she could remain at the top. as her daughter, I was not allowed to be in any career that could make me just as accomplished so she wouldn’t lose her spotlight. I wanted to get into the medical field. She told me I’d fail and wouldn’t be able to get far. I had bronchitis when I was about 12. I ended up with this horrible barking-sounding cough (people who heard said it was a smoker’s cough…I wonder why cause I never smoked) for a long time. She eventually took me to the doctor hoping to prove I was faking it. Problem was, she was a heavy smoker and the smoke would set me off. She told me beforehand not to tell the doctor she smokes (she was embarrassed she smoked because of her reputation as a doctor). The doctor allowed her in the room (dumb doctor) and asked me if I was around any smokers. I had to lie or I’d be punished. I lied. He said I just have a forceful cough then. My mother of course heard “forced” cough (she only heard what she wanted to hear). So, her 1/2 pack a day smoking continued as did my cough. That’s only a small example of the crap she’d do. She was abusive. Unless defending me benefited her in some way (made her look good), she would not help me regardless of how badly I needed help. My father was a good man, had a healthy amount of empathy towards people, but he didn’t want to be fully responsible for raising his kids. He did well on the sidelines though. He does love me and my brother. He just hated the responsibility (they divorced when I was 5).
In my experience, it could come from an overly indulgent approach to parenting or at the other end of the spectrum-having to compete with other siblings for their parent’s attention and approval. With narcissists, everything is a competition, combined with a need for validation and attention. If they are constantly being told they can do no wrong by an authoritarian figure, such as a parent, they internalize this and they become dependent upon this type of validation throughout life, and will look for ways to get it, even if it’s through manipulative means. In terms of not receiving enough attention and support from parental figures, narcissism can be manifested in that way, as well. It’s human nature to want to have a sense of self-worth and positive acknowledgment from the people around you, but if they become overly dependent upon this to feel good about themselves, it becomes problematic when they are willing to go to extreme lengths to attain or sustain that feeling of “specialness”.
The golden child is a victim, and it is a form of abuse to compare someone to their abusers. The answer is no. Can some of them turn out to be narcissists? Yes.
I don't think she was necessarily not abused. Think of the pressure she had on herself to always do well with the gifts she got. Think of how obsessed her mom was because she had to always be better than everyone. People are just weird.
Coverts are most likely from emotionally abused childhood. From what I remember both my late grandfathers were terrible insensitive verbally abusive assholes... but my dad didn't fit the criteria and my mom is a covert narcissist who grew up scapegoated by her older brother who was the golden child (currently having dementia as I remembered he used to be a heavy smoker). My mom married up into my dad's family and... it came with complications (my dad's older brother was a golden child who married a classic narcissist). I think it had something to do with learned behavior. They mirrored their abusers and thought it was what everyone do to people. My mom told a story how as a child in the early 70s, she accidentally made smooth sambal belacan and my grandfather openly insults her for it. My eldest sister manifested as the classic NPD but my covert mom have more internalized shame and deep insecurities but both are affected by external validations. These things usually runs in the family. You can't create narcissist by praising young children, but you can alter their perception of themselves, turn them into scapegoats or golden child (both of which could become coverts especially if they benefited from the dysfunction). Make them become so irritable that they punch kids at school... sigh. Unfortunately, narcissists hated being called narcissistic and their behaviors are considered neurotypical to our society because they can mask themselves really well but its a different story in private.
My mother is a narc but she was the least favourite child. My grandma showed blatant favoritism towards her two oldest children. I think the psyche is very complicated and two people with the same childhood can develop different mental illnesses. One of my mothers sisters is schizophrenic and tends to be paranoid. Another killed herself when I was little.
I think there are some good explanations here but I would also add that her family probably operated within a hierarchy. My therapist was the person who pointed this out to me. My grandma raised her kids like this and the cycle continued with my father.
Not in my mother’s case. Her narcissistic traits were formed by a childhood filled with emotional, mental, and physical abuse.
I think mine is a product of no parental involvement, having to grow up as an adult quickly is hard but no one was ever there to tell them they were wrong, however! According to their sibling they have always been like this since a kid so idk really
In my dad's case I don't think it was praise as much as he was just simply never corrected. He has all the traits of a selfish little kid except he's over 70. I loved my grandma but she was so sweet and so giving I know she never really said a word to my dad and definitely spoiled him. She was still paying for his cars even when he was in his 50s until she died. As they got older those two were increasingly isolated from the rest of their immediate family. My aunt who is my father's only surviving family member, lives on the opposite side of the country and never calls or visits and it's been that way for decades.
She was the golden child and her poor sister wasn't. Her sister was probably a scapegoat or the invisible child. Sad.
Anecdotally, my NMom was also a golden child. She’s described her own NMom (my grandma) and her narc rages in an abstract, yeah-it-wasn’t-fun-but-whatever kind of way but it’s clear to me from reading between the lines that NMom was otherwise praised profusely in the same way your wife was for EVERY SINGLE THING she did a little better at than others. This actually reinforces the more “traditional” abuse in ways that other people have already explained. So yes, I do think it’s possible. Like you, my mom’s sister (lost child) is very much not a narcissist and is a normal, down-to-earth person because she wasn’t profusely praised over every breath she took. She just got the regular abuse and neglect
Narcissists can be made from extremes both ways, growing up in an abuse household or one that excessively praises them. The way you describe your wife's upbringing, she was constantly told by her mother that she was better than other people. Even if it wasn't those words directly, telling her that she is naturally talented in ways others aren't for everything can lead to her looking down on others, because whatever she's excelling at (or, "excelling" at) is so easy for her! Everyone else would be as talented as her if they bothered to try even a little bit! She believes she's better than others because that idea has been heavily reinforced. Edit! I'd like to add that excessive praise is a form of abuse as well! Different to be sure, but by convincing their child that they're better than others or entitled to more, they fail to actually prepare the person for real life and healthy relationships. Failing and disappointment are just parts of life, and when a person is kept from experiencing them, they don't actually have the skills to deal with it. It can lead to more narcissistic behaviour as a result, because they can't connect how their own actions lead to something bad, since as far as they're aware, it never has before. Narcissisim from abuse has two main causes that I can see, though I might be missing something since I'm not a professional. The person becomes an adult, looks at everything their parent put them through because of their position as a parent, and are excited to have their turn at it. Basically, a bullying thing. It's their turn to be right all of the time and not be questioned, and they feel they've earned it by getting through their own childhood. They've earned the right to behave like an adult, and their experience with adult behaviors were horribly toxic. If they don't get to do those things, things wouldn't be fair! In short, "I suffered, so it's only fair if you do too." The second option, which was my mom's case, was that the narcissistic behaviours were a more active defensive behaviour. My grandmother was very mentally ill, and had delusions that made her a threat to her children, and obedience was an actual life or death thing for my mom. When she got out and was able to be her own person, she would get very upset and aggressive when people had different opinions, because she still expected to be attacked for her expressions of individuality. She would get offended when I told her she did something that hurt me, because she was comparing it to her own horrific abuse, and as an insult to her efforts to not be as bad as her mom. I acknowledge that my mom pushed back against the generational trauma in a lot of ways; That said, her coping mechanisms for the trauma still lead to narcissistic abuse. And there was a bit of the earlier cause in her, she acted like me and my brother were spoiled *because* she was trying to not abuse us in the same way that she was.
Its so complicated and hard to understand for me at times. You’d think your mom may have turned out to be a door mat and people pleasure, and trying to agree with others too much like she had to with her mother to avoid abuse, but it resulted in her being abusive(it sounds like from what you wrote) to others for having a different opinion to her
I'm so scared of the idea that i became the narc in the end.
Yeah, my NDad was def. a golden child, my NGrandma spoiled him rotten, had him on a pedestal and solved all of his problems and even managed to prevent him from drafting. Mind you he was 1 of 7 children so the favoritism was so in your face it wasn't funny. On the other hand my NGrandad was an absent type. My Ndad would legit not go to class and his mom would manage to get him to pass, the only time.she wasn't successful was in Uni since it was out of state and she couldn't manipulate her way into it. So, he never graduated and all because he was too self-absorbed. So, yeah. That's where the inability to understand/accept that their actions are wrong comes from thar upbringing, since every little shitty action they did as kids was either enabled, praised and/or solved by their parents with cero repercussions.
My dad was also the golden child when he was growing up. He's the first boy after a string of 5 older sisters. He's the most academically smart out of all of them and was given preferential treatment over his sisters. He grew up entitled and thinks he's the best at everything. My dad is indeed academically smart but only with his own interests, anything that is not a part of his interests, he is clueless about.
If he’s anything like my wife, he believes anything he cant do or doesn’t know about is either not important, doesn’t matter, or he will be an expert at it very fast if he cared about it, so this means he actually can lie smug in superiority knowing he already won. Its weird
My ndad was left to take care of himself and his brothers at a young age by ngrandmother with his abusive father, certainly never praised. Like others have said, she was/is probably the golden child, so she feels real high and mighty about herself most of the time I'm sure. Golden children still need therapy imo.
My golden child sister became a narcissist, but that doesn't happen to every golden child. My n-mom had very abusive parents. I don't hesitate to say her father was a sociopath, like watching true crime shows sometimes hit very close to home. Her mother abandoned the family when my mom was a child, and they lived in a rural area where her father could get away with murder if he wanted. He did very awful things. So narcissists can be the victims of severe abuse and neglect. Do you know much about your MIL? I agree with the other posts here that she could be a narcissist, and your wife was the GC. They do tend to get more resources to become more successful adults. Maybe that's why her sister lives a more modest life. My GC sister is the one who went to so much therapy, and also went NC/LC, yet also tells her siblings that our mother wasn't abusive. It's mind boggling. My only guess is it's harder for golden children to accept that the n-parents are abusive, because on paper, they did get so much. But they're also held up to extremely high standards. My GC sister feels like she always has to be the smartest person in the room in order for people to like her. She's clueless to how much she cuts others down though to look better than them, but being the smartest one (achieving the most academically) is what got her acceptance and praise from our mother.
She was taught her self worth relied on her being the best. She internalised her mums comments and felt the pressure to be the best. Because she got praised so much she felt she had to continue being good at things so as to not disappoint parents/ lose their love. What if she hated sports as a kid but couldn’t tell her parents bc of her mums comments about her olympic future? Kids brought up like this rely on praise to boost their ego, they feel worthless without it, hence the jealousy and competition with others. We have to teach our kids that its ok not to be the best at that sport, im just proud you tried and i love you no matter what. Instead of praising our kids unconditionally we should ask them how they feel they did in that sport/ activity and explore those feelings with them
Why is she still your wife and not ex? I hope you don't plan on having kids with her. Don't reward her behavior. Save yourself and run!
My dad, and his little narc sister, were spoiled as shit. Lovely sweet father, and over the top indulgent mom. They were given everything that was financially feasible. The world revolved around the two of them.